Fallujah was almost flattened after the US assaults that intensified in 2004
Laith Mushtaq. cameraman, Al Jazeera

Laith Mushtaq was one of only two non-embedded cameramen working throughout the April 2004 'battle for Fallujah' in which 600 civilians died. Five years on, he recounts the events he witnessed and filmed.

"What you saw on your TV sets at home reflects only ten per cent of the reality. Also, if you watch those pictures at home, you can change the channel.

But we were in the middle. We smell. We feel, see, and touch everything. We could touch the bodies, but we couldn't change the channel. We were the channel.

When I think of Fallujah, I think of the smell. The smell was driving me crazy. In a dead body, there is a kind of liquid. Yellow liquid. The smell is disgusting, really. It sticks in your nose. You cannot eat anymore.

And you can't get the pictures off your mind, because every day you see the same: Explosion, death, explosion, death, death.

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After work, you sit down and notice there are pieces of flesh on your shoes and blood on your trousers. But you don't have time to ask why.

In April 2004, I remember I was in the Baghdad office and my boss said: "We have information that the Americans will attack Fallujah. We need a crew to go inside Fallujah immediately. Who can go there?"

I said: "Yes. Me. I can go there." I didn't hesitate at all.

Filming was a 'duty'

Laith filmed this family attempting to flee Fallujah - ten minutes later they were dead

I knew the price to pay was high. Maybe my life. But if I'm afraid to die, then I shouldn't hold a camera in any dangerous place. I know some day I will die. Tomorrow. Next month. Next year. Or in ten years. I don't know.

But the point is that maybe I will die in my bed. Or maybe I will die doing something good.

Fallujah was my duty. I had to show the truth to people outside of Iraq.

By truth, I mean what really happened in the streets. Not a political message, just what I could see with my own eyes. Because some people were talking about Fallujah and said "there is nothing happening," or "the people are okay" and "everything is stable".

It would be great if everything had been stable. I would be happy if nothing had happened. I would shoot it and show it, with pleasure. But the reality was very different.

One day, I think it was April 9, 2004, someone with a loudspeaker in Fallujah's main mosque said: "The Americans will open a gate and women and children can go out."

As soon as he had finished, all the women and children of Fallujah tried to find a car to leave the city but when they were in the streets, the US forces opened fire.

There's a picture that I cannot forget. An old woman with three children, I saw her on the street and took a picture of her and the children.

She said: "We don't have any men here, can anyone help us?" Many of the men from Fallujah worked in Baghdad, once the city was sealed off they could not get back to their wives and children.

So, some men helped her, I decided to film the scene and then I sat down to smoke.

Ten minutes later, an ambulance came down the road. I ran to follow the ambulance and when they opened the door, I saw the same woman and her children - but they were in pieces.

I still remember the nurses couldn't carry the woman because she was in too many pieces, people were jumping back when they saw it. Then, one nurse shouted: "Hey, she looks like your mother."

In the Iraqi language that means: "She could be your mother, so treat her like you'd treat your mom." Everyone stood up and tried to carry a piece because they needed to get her out quickly, because the ambulance was needed for other people.

"We heard people screaming inside the hospital, they did not have any drugs left. They had to cut legs without anything at all"
We were standing in front of the main hospital, but we would have needed 12 cameramen in order to cover all that happened that day.

There were five, six ambulances coming and going with dead and injured people. When I filmed people inside the hospital, there were so many outside. When I filmed outside, there were so many inside.

Me and all of the Al Jazeera crew, we felt paralysed. It was bigger than us. We were only two cameramen and two reporters. It's not enough.

Reporters, editors in Doha and Baghdad, the people of Fallujah, all of them kept calling for us to film what was happening, and the ambulances just kept coming and going.

We heard people screaming inside the hospital, because they did not have any drugs left. They had to cut legs without anything at all.

At some point, I couldn't move anymore. I sat down on the street and kept smoking. I couldn't move. I see what's happening around me, but I can't move. Khallas [enough]. I didn't have any energy left.

Corpse-strewn streets

But then you remember the heroes of Fallujah that nobody talks about.

Like this old man. He had a pick-up truck and every day, he drove through the streets and listened to the people who told him there is a dead body in this or that street, but nobody can go there because there's a sniper.

Then he went there, stopped his car, and on his knees, he'd crawl to the body and carry it to his pick-up car. One day he brought five bodies.

Some of them had died more than a week ago, but no one had dared to carry them away. Some, the dogs had started eating them.

While I was inside Fallujah, I knew that every single move of my camera is not for me. It's for the people inside. And the people outside who should know what happened. It's like an SOS.

The Americans said our pictures stirred up hatred against them. But what I did was only showing what their army did on the ground.

I don't hate them, I don't want vengeance, I just wish they had understood what they were doing.

And sometimes I wish my mind was more like a computer that you can reformat. Or that you can go to hospital and get pieces of your memory removed.

In Fallujah, there were moments when I held my camera beside a dead body and I felt I haven't got a heart anymore. Because of the dose of war that I've seen. It was something like an overdose.

Not just for me inside, also for my family in Baghdad.

The month that I spent in Fallujah, my mom was watching TV all the time, because she knew her son was there and she knew those were the pictures that he had shot. Sometimes we couldn't talk for a couple of days.

One day, she heard on the news that the Americans would try to reach the middle of the city. She couldn't bear it anymore. She went to the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad and cried: "Give me my son back!"

I was embarrassed, but my mother is, well, a mother.

Around the same time, in the evening, we got a phone call from the general manager of Al Jazeera. He wanted to talk to every member of the crew. The driver. Me. Everyone.

He said: "Thank you very much, we appreciate what you're doing." And then he said: "If you want to leave Fallujah, we'll send someone and will try to get you out of there."

We all refused. Everyone wanted to stay.

Why should we be better than the women and children of Fallujah? No one had called them to ask whether they wanted to leave."

In a written statement given to Al Jazeera, Lieutenant Colonel Curtis L Hill, public affairs director for the multi-national force in the west of Iraq, denied US-led forces fired on "unarmed civilians" .

"Coalition forces were there to capture the terrorists responsible for the death of four American contractors. They would not have fired on unarmed civilians attempting to leave the city," he said.

Specifically asked if a ceasefire had been called on April 9, he said troops had "halted the advance although I believe the date was 11 April".

Interview compiled by Stephanie Doetzer

Laith Mushtaq is from Baghdad and joined Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel in 2003. He is now based in Doha.

This entry was posted on Apr 09, 2009 at 11:25:23 am and is filed under American Empire.
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It was nearly 25 years ago when Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu exposed his nation's secret nuclear weapons program to the world through The Sunday Times of London. Now, days before he is due to be released from captivity in Israel, an American president dared to envision a world free of nuclear weapons. In the Middle East, however, things seem to be heading in the opposite direction.

While the Israelis have stuck to a strategy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming or denying possession of nuclear weapons, experts around the globe estimate the Israeli stockpile to be in the range of 70 to 300 nuclear warheads, reports the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Israelis have also taken pre-emptive and provocative steps to ensure nuclear dominance in the region by carrying out attacks in Iraq and Syria.

Despite the fact that the Israeli nuclear capability has contributed to the end of conventional interstate war in the region, animosity remains steady as battlefields shift. Increased asymmetrical warfare is on the rise and although Israel remains conventionally superior to its non-state enemies in the region, it has failed in eliminating the threats they pose.

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Iran also continues to test Western patience by perpetuating its nuclear program. While Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful, policymakers here often suspect otherwise.

The Middle East has enough problems and certainly does not need another, deadlier, weapons race. But an Iran-centric non-proliferation policy is myopic and dangerous and will likely lead the region into further destabilizing conflict.

A better approach is reviving an effort for a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction. Recalled in UN Security Council Resolution 687, the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East would go a great distance toward providing security for states in the region and re-establishing faith in the international legal system.

To do this, the international community, led by the United States, would have to put equal pressure on Iran and Israel to open their facilities for full inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency and dismantle all nuclear weapons programs and eliminate all stockpiles.

This will not be easy for Israel to accept considering its history in the region and the solid track record of deterrence its weapons program has had with surrounding states.

However, these concerns can be allayed by strong security guarantees by the United States to retaliate against any state that launches a nuclear attack against Israel. A nuclear attack on Israel by a Muslim majority state is also deterred by the significant, and larger, number of Muslim kin who would be killed in such an attack.

This policy would have to go hand in hand with a resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which has in recent years become a proxy battleground for the United States and Iran and has only resulted in the unnecessary deaths of countless innocents.

The alternatives to a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East are grim. It is unlikely that sanctions will halt a hurting but sustainable oil-exporting Iran, and military options cannot guarantee the desired outcome without the likelihood of ground operations or regional conflagration.

Eight years of disastrous U.S. foreign policy has contributed to the rise of a defensive Iran, the realignment of states in the Middle East, a perpetuated Israeli/Palestinian conflict and an increase in asymmetrical war throughout the region. The U.S. has a responsibility and a major national security and economic stake in setting the Middle East on a different course.

If President Barack Obama envisions a world free of nuclear weapons, he can begin by evenhandedly enforcing non-proliferation policy in the Middle East with Iran and Israel. Obama will get much further with this strategy than an Iran-only approach, which comes off to Middle Easterners as hypocritical, hegemonic and deceitful.

Yousef Munayyer is a policy analyst at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington.

This entry was posted on Apr 09, 2009 at 08:37:40 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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This entry was posted on Apr 09, 2009 at 08:31:26 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Two U.S. congressmen made a rare visit to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, meeting with aid workers and touring scenes of destruction left by Israel's military offensive.

Reps. Bob Inglis and Stephen F. Lynch pointedly avoided contact with the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza and which the United States, European Union and Israel consider a terrorist organization.

Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said the world must find a way to address a "legitimate humanitarian crisis" in Gaza.

"We need to act with some urgency here. There is a humanitarian crisis going on and we can't dawdle," Lynch told the Associated Press.

[More:]

Israel launched the three-week offensive in December with the aim of ending rocket fire on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Palestinian human rights groups say more than 1,400 people were killed, including more than 900 civilians. Thousands of buildings and much of Gaza's infrastructure were destroyed or damaged.

Israel says the death toll was lower, and most of those killed were Hamas militants.

Lynch said he and Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina, visited a project run by Catholic Relief Services in a heavily damaged neighborhood and a tent camp where displaced Gazans have been living since the war ended on Jan. 18. They also visited the grounds of the American International School of Gaza, a U.S.-style school the Israeli army flattened during the offensive, saying militants launched rockets from its grounds.

Lynch said the destruction in Gaza was worse than he expected.

Since Hamas violently seized the territory from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained tight border control. Restrictions on cement and other building materials - which Israel says could benefit Hamas - have greatly hampered the reconstruction effort.

"It is problematic having the checkpoints closed," Lynch said.

He said aid could be brought into Gaza through the U.N. and other organizations, and that safeguards could be put in place to make sure resources were used properly. But the U.S. will not work with Hamas until it changed its policy toward Israel and rejected violence, he said.

Tuesday's visit followed a similar tour earlier this year by Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and two Democratic congressmen, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Brian Baird of Washington.

This entry was posted on Apr 09, 2009 at 08:29:45 am and is filed under Human Rights.
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The West needs to end the Hamas isolation policy if it really wants to achieve peace in the troubled Middle East, 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Marrti Ahtisaari believes.

"We have to start, I think, talking to Hamas," Ahtisaari, a former Finish president and a UN especial envoy at the Kosovo status process negotiations, said in an exclusive interview with Reuters.

"You can't eliminate those who have power," maintained the UN diplomat and mediator who is world-renowned for his international peace work.

Led by the US, the West has rejected contacts with Hamas since the group swept Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and came to power.

[More:]

But calls for dialogue with Hamas have intensified recently, especially after Israel's three-week war which killed more than 1,350 people, mostly civilians.

Last month, a group of former international peace negotiators urged the West to re-think the Hamas isolation policy, insisting the group must be engaged in the peace process.

Middle East Quartet envoy and former British premier Tony Blair has also called for Hamas inclusion in the peace process.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged the West to respect the democratic Palestinian elections that brought Hamas to power.

"You have to talk to those who are representative, whether you like their views or not," agreed Ahtisaari.

Unrealistic

The former Finish leader and UN envoy criticized the preconditions set by the West for talks with Hamas.

"I am not a card player but I would definitely not start my game with you by saying 'Hey, I have four aces,'" he told Reuters.

The US and Europe link any talks with Hamas to its recognition of Israel, acceptance of signed peace agreements and end of what they described as "violence" against Israel.

Ahtisaari, who won the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of "his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts," warned that a continued isolation policy could backfire.

"It's dangerous if you exclude. Look at Algeria."

He was referring to the bloodshed that erupted in the North African country after the authorities in 1992 canceled an election the Islamic Salvation Front, an Islamist party, appeared poised to win after the first round of voting.

"I don't think you can make peace if you try to eliminate those who have the support of the population."

This entry was posted on Apr 07, 2009 at 10:21:53 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Jerusalem - A Palestinian man was shot dead on Tuesday by Israeli border guards at a checkpoint near the now-demolished East Jerusalem family home of a slain construction worker who went on a deadly bulldozer rampage last summer.

A man identified as 20-year-old Iyad Azmi Uweisat was killed while driving near the checkpoint. Israeli soldiers and police officers were deployed in the area where Israeli forces were demolishing the Dwayat family home in the East Jerusalem town of Sur Bahir Tuesday afternoon.

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The Israeli police said they shot Uweisat when he intentionally ploughed his car into the officers, lightly injuring three of them in the legs.

Police later raided Uweisat's home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukkabir. Uweisat was a cleaning worker at Hadassa Hospital.

Local sources in Sur Bahir said it was likely the man was provoked, noting that soldiers had been assaulting and goading residents throughout the morning.

Earlier in the day soldiers forcibly evacuated the family of the first Jerusalem “bulldozer attacker” Husam Taysir Dwayat following the signing of an eviction and demolition order last month.

Uweisat reportedly drove his small car into the area, lightly injuring three Israeli soldiers, who answered the attack with several direct shots to the young man. He died shortly after receiving the injuries, and was not evacuated to hospital.

Uweisat died in the same way as Dwayat, who was behind the wheel of the bulldozer that ran into a bus and civilian car near Yaffa Street in Jerusalem on 2 July. The 30-year-old construction worker from East Jerusalem was shot by three different passersby on sight. His family maintained that the incident must have been an accident. A second “bulldozer attack” occurred on 22 July, and a third incident involving a tractor occurred on 6 March 2009.

The Dwayat family, who had been working to have the demolition order overturned, challenged the troops as they worked to pull family members out of the home. Mrs Dwayat fainted during the shouting match, and was treated on scene.

The demolition order, signed by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in an effort to “deter” other Palestinians from “attacking” Israeli targets, includes two apartments owned by Husam’s father; the two buildings are home to 14. Aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for Jerusalem affairs Hatem Abd Al-Qader noted that the family has been trying to overturn the order, or at the least preserve one of the homes, on the grounds that Husam never lived in the apartment.

The family is pleading their case based on declarations that Husam acted independently and that the family had no control over his behavior. According to Abd Al-Qader, a medical report was provided that attests Hussam had lost control over his own actions and acted temporarily insane. The court rejected the report.

Israel is justifying the “deterrent demolition” under the British mandate law number 119 (1945) which allows the demolition of the homes of those acting aggressively against the state.

Over 150,000 Palestinians in Gaza (around 10 percent of the population) are struggling without tap water as a result of the damage caused to wells, pipes and waste water facilities during the recent 23-day Israeli offensive which ended on 18 January.

"Our requests via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to the Israeli military during the conflict to allow shipments of construction materials and spare parts to repair wells and facilities damaged during the war were denied," Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) director-general Monther Shoblak told IRIN.

[More:]

Shoblak estimates that 50,000 people lack tap water after losing their homes, while a further 100,000 have dry taps because of damage to the water supply network.

Eleven of Gaza’s 150 wells, the only source of drinking water for Gaza’s 1.4 million people (apart from expensive bottled water and water trucked in by aid agencies), are not functioning. Six were completely destroyed, according to CMWU.

Many residents in the north and in Rafah have water from their taps only every 4-7 days. CMWU is working to rectify the situation, Shoblak said, but is hampered by lack of supplies.

“Since the end of the war the CMWU has received three out of 80 trucks waiting to enter Gaza containing pipes and spare parts,” he said, adding that Israel is obliging the utility company to provide proof - in the form of photographs of repair work - that the items received are being used for their designated purpose.

“The three trucks received by the CMWU contained only half a kilometre of piping,” he said.

Taxi driver Mohamed Abu Ragheleh, 23, has tap water in his home in Jabalia only three or four days a week. “We have electricity only eight hours per day so it is difficult to pump the water from the roof-top tanks to our homes… We have trouble bathing, washing our clothes, and cooking.”

“There was severe damage to waste water treatment plants in Beit Hanoun and in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, affecting water quality,” said Shoblak. “After the plant in Gaza City was bombed it discharged raw sewage for 20 days, contaminating groundwater.”

Shoblak has asked UN agencies to survey homes and hospitals to identify which areas have contaminated water.

Aid Efforts

International aid institutions like Oxfam, Action contre la Faim (ACF) and CARE continue to deliver containers of drinking water to residents in affected areas, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has donated US$50,000 to CMWU to begin quick repairs to the water network; ACF has paid $50,000 to local contractors to repair pipes and other infrastructure; and German government-owned development bank KFW had committed $60,000 for immediate repairs, said CMWU.

CMWU’s mid-term recovery plan is to re-establish the destroyed water network. CMWU has a commitment of $2.5 million from what is collectively known as the water and sanitation cluster, including UN agencies like UNICEF and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and international aid institutions like Oxfam, ICRC, Islamic Relief, and the Qatari Red Crescent.

CMWU’s long-term recovery plan - requiring $3.5 million and falling under the larger UN Gaza flash appeal for US$613 million - covers repairs in areas that have been evacuated and will be coordinated with the re-building of homes.

However, major repairs cannot take place without the opening of border crossings to allow in spare parts and building materials. The Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has confirmed it does not intend to revise its policy of prohibiting reconstruction materials from entering Gaza, according to OCHA.

This entry was posted on Apr 07, 2009 at 09:53:08 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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The recent war waged by Israel against Gaza Strip resulted in nearly 1500 children joining the already lengthy list of orphans in Gaza. This was disclosed by the Minister of Social Affairs, Ahmad Kurd, during the Ministry’s observation of Arab Orphans Day on Thursday, April 2nd. It is one of the by-products of a policy of aggression aimed at every segment of the Palestinian society, an aggression that makes no exceptions: not for children, nor for women, nor for the elderly.

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Humanitarian relief institutions, such as British-based Islamic Relief, estimate that about 1346 children lost one or both parents during the 23-day assault on Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces. The Palestinian Human Rights Center stated that six children lost both parents during the attack on Gaza.

The suffering of children due to the war on Gaza was not limited to the bitterness of becoming orphans deprived of the sympathy of their fathers or the tenderness of their mothers, or both. Rather, innocent children became direct victims of the aggression against unarmed civilians. This fact is confirmed by the statistics of local and international organizations concerned with human rights, which placed the total number of Palestinians killed at 1434 people, including 960 civilians; among these were 437 children under the age of 16, 110 women and 123 elderly, in addition to 14 doctors and four reporters. These statistics show that the number of children who died amounted to more than 45% of the total number of civilian casualties of the war.

Short-term and Long-term Psychological Effects
According to a report by the humanitarian news agency (IRIN), citing statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza that were current up until February 5th, 2009, the sum of 1872 children were wounded in the same war.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported that Israeli soldiers have been accused of committing war crimes against the Palestinians by deliberately using civilians as human shields during the assault. This is a violation of the Geneva conventions, which prohibit intentional endangerment of the lives of civilians.

Furthermore, there are the psychological effects of the war on children, a result of witnessing scenes of mass destruction and of people being killed and grievously injured in front of them. This age group is in particular need of psychological help in order to regain some modicum of stability.

The testimony of children collected after the ceasefire in Gaza brought to light incidents in which young children remained beside the corpses of their parents and relatives for days on end because the bombardments and fighting made free movement impossible. Such experiences are bound to have severe psychological repercussions. They also reported shocking crimes perpetrated by the Zionists against friends and relatives which they witnessed with their own eyes; crimes that included threats, abuse and murder.

Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), offered some corroborative testimony in describing her visits in March of this year to centers for psychological assistance operated by UNICEF and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the northern Gaza Strip. These centers provide art and music therapy and activities designed to reduce tension and psychological stress.

She mentioned that the children in those centers were drawing pictures of rockets aimed at their homes. One little girl painted the bottom part black and said it was “a place to bury the dead”, by which she may have meant a cemetery.
Ms. Veneman stressed that these children must receive, at the earliest possible opportunity, the attention of trained professionals to help them overcome the effects of the trauma they have suffered.

Requests to Sponsor Orphans
Dr. Fadl Abu Hein, Director of the Center for Societal Training and Crisis Management in Gaza, is of the opinion that all the psychological symptoms experienced by children in the Gaza Strip during the current period will be less than the many psychological effects of the war which will appear over the course of time. The effects on those suffering from them may last for many years.

He indicates that this is linked to the magnitude of the events; seeing the places where they occurred will trigger suppressed memories of those harrowing scenes. He says: “No psychologist can give an accurate estimate of the magnitude and nature of the psychological impact of war on children, as all the details of life have become linked in the minds of our children to the bombardment, death and destruction, and this means that every aspect of the lives of Palestinian children is associated with mental illness.”

As a result of the increasing number of orphaned children in Gaza, official agencies and charitable and humanitarian institutions, urged volunteers to sponsor them. Ahmed Kurd, Minister of Social Affairs of the legitimate government in Gaza, called upon institutions and nations to increase assistance to the orphans. He praised the Arab and Islamic institutions that have competed with one another in previous years to take care of the children of Palestine, noting that the number of orphans in Gaza receiving foster care from governmental bodies and NGOs has reached more than 20 thousand.

Muhammad Abu Deraz, Director of Islamic Relief’s Office for Children in Gaza, disclosed that “requests for sponsorship of orphans in the Gaza Strip have witnessed a steep increase”. The organization has received more than 500 requests for sponsorship, of which it has only been able to comply with 200.

This entry was posted on Apr 07, 2009 at 09:49:34 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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This weekend the Israeli daily, Ma'ariv, published an interview in Hebrew with Professor Ben Zion Netanyahu, the 99-year-old father of the new Israeli prime minister.

The elder Netanyahu is known for his outspokenness and extreme right-wing views--and he did nothing to contradict his reputation. He decreed that the only solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is the use of military force. He stated that he would not return the Golan Heights to Syria because "you do not return land." He also explained that in his view it is impossible to compromise with Arabs. The Prime Minister's father further opines that the Turks used brutal deadly force to suppress the Arab population and that should be an example to Israel in dealing with Arabs whose nature dictates that they live in a state of perpetual war.

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There are reports that the Prime Minister's Office unsuccessfully tried to convince Ma'ariv to suppress publication of this article since the elder Netanyahu's controversial views would be embarrassing for his son.

When I learned of the interview, I searched Google hoping to learn more about the father. In doing so, I stumbled across a February television interview with both father and son, again, in Hebrew. In this brief television appearance the then-candidate Benjamin Netanyahu appears very comfortable when his father states that Israel is today in great danger of being completely destroyed and that the "holocaust never ended and is continuing at this very moment."

In this dual appearance, Benjamin Netanyahu, reflecting the direct influence of his father's view that no territory should ever be returned, proclaims that there will not be any evacuations of settlements during his administration. This position places him on a direct collision course with the Obama administration which claims to want to work toward a negotiated peace in the region.

What follows is a translation of Netanyahu's statements (from 3:55 of the video):

Netanyahu: I think that anyone who has eyes in his head understands that today any settlement that will be evacuated will be grabbed by the bitter enemies of the State of Israel.
Question: So you can say that the Likud [Netanyahu’s party] will not evacuate settlements during its term of office?
Netanyahu: Yes.
Question: Will not evacuate?
Netanyahu: Indeed.

As the interviewer stated, Benjamin Netanyahu has been greatly influenced by the views of his father. Under his father’s watchful eye and possibly affected by what some say has been an overbearing parental manner that influence is very painfully apparent.

- Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972, where he taught English and physical education in a small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. Glunts lives in Madison, New York where he operates a used and rare book business, writes and is a part-time reference librarian. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: gluntsi@morrisville.edu.

This entry was posted on Apr 07, 2009 at 08:51:34 pm and is filed under Racism.
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BETHLEHEM, Palestine - Relatives of a 15-year-old Bedouin girl shot dead by Israeli forces on Saturday denied reports she opened fire on a military post before she was killed, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"It couldn't be. The police [are] lying and exaggerating. Maybe she was there to make a complaint and got mixed-up," said Ali Al-Nabari, a cousin of the girl accused of attacking a southern Israeli military post on Saturday.

The Palestinian, identified as 15-year-old Basma Awad An-Nabbari, was from the central Israeli town of Beersheva.

[More:]

"The person manning the base gate thinks that anyone wearing a kaffiyeh is a terrorist," he insisted. "His friends shot her for no reason. She is involved in a program for exceptional students and active in social projects. It isn't logical that someone could have influenced her. She is in school from the morning until the afternoon and she comes straight home from there. There is no internet, or anything else. Maybe the police made up the gun."

Israeli police said the attack occurred around 2pm when the girl arrived at the Border Guard post and opened fire toward officers, leading them to return fire. No other injuries or damage were reported.

According to another relative, responding to reports from Israeli police that the girl was attempting to avenge the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, "This is a false claim by the police." "They are looking to cover up their actions. This could not have been a terror attack."

"This was a special and kind child," said a family member. "Why didn't they show the gun on television? They only filmed her bag. They killed her accidentally and we intend to fight this to the end. We will hire lawyers and petition the courts until everyone knows the truth."

This entry was posted on Apr 05, 2009 at 12:20:30 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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GAZA, [PIC]-- The legitimate PA government under Premier Ismael Haneyya has hailed the Egyptian efforts in sponsoring the inter-Palestinian dialogue in Cairo, but called on Palestinian factions participating in the talks not to bow to external pressures.

Tahir Al-Nonu, the PA spokesman, described as "futile and tampering with the Palestinian issue" those calls that urge conceding political stands under the pretext of being pragmatics amidst clear Israeli rejection of the legal rights of the Palestinian people.

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Nonu's remarks came apparently after second round of the inter-Palestinian dialogue failed due to Fatah's insistence to recognize all deals and agreements signed between the PLO and Israel.

He said that the insistence of the Fatah delegation on accepting the conditions of the Quartet Committee doesn’t help the national interests of the Palestinian people, stressing that all factions must reach transparent and clear-cut agreement that should treat all issues of disputes in the Palestinian arena, and to harmonize all programs of the Palestinian factions based on supporting the resistance against the occupation.

Moreover, Nonu pointed out that the clear statements of Avigdor Lieberman, the new Israeli foreign minister, of rejecting the Annapolis conference must serve as a "wake-up call" for Fatah faction and the PA in Ramallah city to start rethinking all the settlement projects they had reached with the previous Israeli governments.

"The proper answer to those calls [of Lieberman] is to declare halting all forms of negotiations and security coordination with the Israeli occupation government, and to reject the prejudice international conditions on the Palestinian people", Nonu underscored.

For his part, Dr. Salah Al-Bardaweel, the spokesman of Hamas's parliamentary bloc in the PLC, was clear enough in associating the failure of the latest round of talks to Fatah's insistence on not to compromise any of its stands.

"Fatah insisted to abide by the decisions and obligations of the PLO [although harmful to the Palestinian people future], and refused to discuss reforming the PA security apparatuses in the West Bank, and limited such reforms to PA security departments in Gaza Strip", underlined Bardaweel who is also predicating in the dialogue. www.

"It seems that the Fatah delegation returned to the table of negotiation with clear orders not to give any compromises or show flexibility in any of the issues on the table… we thought at the beginning it was a tactic, but we found out later on that it was a vision and a decision rather than being a tactic", Bardaweel explained.

He added that both parties agreed to suspend the dialogue for sometimes till everything is arranged in a better form.

This entry was posted on Apr 03, 2009 at 10:30:42 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Netanyahu's Ultimatum to Obama: Either You Take Out Iran's Nukes Or We Do

By M.J. Rosenberg - March 31, 2009

On Friday, I wrote that I thought that incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu may have moderated over the years.

Not for the first time, I was wrong. Big time.

Check out this interview (below) Netanyahu gave the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg today. Netanyahu says flatout that either the Obama administration deals with Iran's nuclear development or Israel will have no choice but to act unilaterally (i.e, with bombs).

Pretty incredible. An Israeli attack on Iran would jeopadize a myriad of American interests in the region, starting with 130,000 US troops but Netanyahu talks as if he can call the shots without any regard for our interests. The fact is that, in the eyes of Iran (and the world), there is essentially no difference between an Israeli attack and one by us. Israel is viewed as our client. In other words, any blowback from an Israeli attack is as likely to be against us as against Israel. Americans in Iraq, or here at home, could pay the ultimate price.

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President Obama needs to get on the phone and let Netanyahu know that Israel can take no action vis a vis Iran without full consultation with Washington. Obama is pursuing diplomacy which means, whether it lkes it or not, that Israel is too. And that, quite simply, means that Israel cannot act unilaterally as if it is a free agent. It isn't. Like the Britain, Germany, Canada, or France, it cannot take unilateral actions that would endanger Americans.

That is a message Obama needs to deliver not diplomatically but directly and unambiguously.

In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that, just before leaving office, Dick Cheney told the Israelis that Obama is a wimp and could be ignored.

Netanyahu appears to have bought into the Cheney thesis and is now testing it by insulting the President on the day he is sworn in as Prime Minister. Let's see if Obama let's him get away with it. My guess is that Bibi just made the first major blunder of his tenure.

It is also not a coincidence that Netanyahu trash talked Iran while US Special Envoy Holbrooke was holding the Obama administration's first face-to-face meeting with an Iranian official in The Hague. This is in keeping with the pattern set by President Shimon Peres who sent a nasty greeting to the Iranian people simultaneously with Obama's friendly overture. The name of the game is to make it impossible for Obama to achieve a breakthrough with Iran by always leaving the impression that America is in thrall to Israel. Clever. And dangerous.

~~~~~~~~The message from Israel's new prime minister is stark: if the Obama administration doesn't prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, Israel may be forced to attack.

by Jeffrey GoldbergIn an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today (March 31) as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.

“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told me. He said the Iranian nuclear challenge represents a “hinge of history” and added that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

History teaches Jews that threats against their collective existence should be taken seriously, and, if possible, preempted, he suggested. In recent years, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has regularly called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and the supreme Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, this month called Israel a “cancerous tumor.”

But Netanyahu also said that Iran threatens many other countries apart from Israel, and so his mission over the next several months is to convince the world of the broad danger posed by Iran. One of his chief security advisers, Moshe Ya’alon, told me that a nuclear Iran could mean the end of American influence in the Middle East. “This is an existential threat for Israel, but it will be a blow for American interests, especially on the energy front. Who will dominate the oil in the region—Washington or Tehran?”

Netanyahu said he would support President Obama’s decision to engage Iran, so long as negotiations brought about a quick end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “How you achieve this goal is less important than achieving it,” he said, but he added that he was skeptical that Iran would respond positively to Obama’s appeals. In an hour-long conversation, held in the Knesset, Netanyahu tempered his aggressive rhetoric with an acknowledgement that nonmilitary pressure could yet work. “I think the Iranian economy is very weak, which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means.” When I suggested that this statement contradicted his assertion that Iran, by its fanatic nature, is immune to pressure, Netanyahu smiled thinly and said, “Iran is a composite leadership, but in that composite leadership there are elements of wide-eyed fanaticism that do not exist right now in any other would-be nuclear power in the world. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”

He went on, “Since the dawn of the nuclear age, we have not had a fanatic regime that might put its zealotry above its self-interest. People say that they’ll behave like any other nuclear power. Can you take the risk? Can you assume that?”

Netanyahu offered Iran’s behavior during its eight-year war with Iraq as proof of Tehran’s penchant for irrational behavior. Iran “wasted over a million lives without batting an eyelash … It didn’t sear a terrible wound into the Iranian consciousness. It wasn’t Britain after World War I, lapsing into pacifism because of the great tragedy of a loss of a generation. You see nothing of the kind.”

He continued: “You see a country that glorifies blood and death, including its own self-immolation.” I asked Netanyahu if he believed Iran would risk its own nuclear annihilation at the hands of Israel or America. “I’m not going to get into that,” he said.

Neither Netanyahu nor his principal military advisers would suggest a deadline for American progress on the Iran nuclear program, though one aide said pointedly that Israeli time lines are now drawn in months, “not years.” These same military advisers told me that they believe Iran’s defenses remain penetrable, and that Israel would not necessarily need American approval to launch an attack. “The problem is not military capability, the problem is whether you have the stomach, the political will, to take action,” one of his advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me.

Both Israeli and American intelligence officials agree that Iran is moving forward in developing a nuclear-weapons capability. The chief of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, said earlier this month that Iran has already “crossed the technological threshold,” and that nuclear military capability could soon be a fact: “Iran is continuing to amass hundreds of kilograms of low-enriched uranium, and it hopes to exploit the dialogue with the West and Washington to advance toward the production of an atomic bomb.”

American officials argue that Iran has not crossed the “technological threshold”; the director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, said recently that Israel and the U.S. are working with the same set of facts, but are interpreting it differently. “The Israelis are far more concerned about it, and they take more of a worst-case approach to these things from their point of view,” he said. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, recently warned that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would undermine stability in the Middle East and endanger the lives of Americans in the Persian Gulf.

The Obama administration agrees with Israel that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to Middle East stability, but it also wants Israel to focus on the Palestinian question. Netanyahu, for his part, promises to move forward on negotiations with the Palestinians, but he made it clear in our conversation that he believes a comprehensive peace will be difficult to achieve if Iran continues to threaten Israel, and he cited Iran’s sponsorship of such Islamist groups as Hezbollah and Hamas as a stumbling block.

Ya’alon, a former army chief of staff who is slated to serve as Netanyahu’s minister for strategic threats, dismissed the possibility of a revitalized peace process, telling me that “jihadists” interpret compromise as weakness. He cited the reaction to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza four years ago. “The mistake of disengagement from Gaza was that we thought like Westerners, that compromise would defuse a problem—but it just encouraged the problem,” he said. “The jihadists saw withdrawal as a defeat of the West … Now, what do you signal to them if you are ready to divide Jerusalem, or if you’re ready to withdraw to the 1967 lines? In this kind of conflict, your ability to stand and be determined is more important than your firepower.”

American administration sources tell me that President Obama won’t shy from pressuring Netanyahu on the Palestinian issue during his first visit to Washington as prime minister, which is scheduled for early May. But Netanyahu suggested that he and Obama already see eye-to-eye on such crucial issues as the threat posed by Hamas. “The Obama administration has recently said that Hamas has to first recognize Israel and cease the support of terror. That’s a very good definition. It says you have to cease being Hamas.”

When I noted that many in Washington doubt his commitment to curtailing Jewish settlement on the West Bank, he said, in reference to his previous term as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999, “I can only point to what I did as prime minister in the first round. I certainly didn’t build new settlements.”

Netanyahu will manage Israel’s relationship with Washington personally—his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, of the anti-Arab Israel Beiteinu party, is deeply unpopular in Washington—and I asked him if he could foresee agreeing on a “grand bargain” with Obama, in which he would move forward on talks with the Palestinians in exchange for a robust American response to Iran’s nuclear program. He said: “We intend to move on the Palestinian track independent of what happens with Iran, and I hope the U.S. moves to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons regardless of what happens on the Palestinian track.”

In our conversation, Netanyahu gave his fullest public explication yet of why he believes President Obama must consider Iran’s nuclear ambitions to be his preeminent overseas challenge. “Why is this a hinge of history? Several bad results would emanate from this single development. First, Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella. This raises the stakes of any confrontation that they’d force on Israel. Instead of being a local event, however painful, it becomes a global one. Second, this development would embolden Islamic militants far and wide, on many continents, who would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph.

“Third, they would be able to pose a real and credible threat to the supply of oil, to the overwhelming part of the world’s oil supply. Fourth, they may threaten to use these weapons or to give them to terrorist proxies of their own, or fabricate terror proxies. Finally, you’d create a great sea change in the balance of power in our area—nearly all the Arab regimes are dead-set opposed to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. They fervently hope, even if they don’t say it, that the U.S. will act to prevent this, that it will use its political, economic, and, if necessary, military power to prevent this from happening.”

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Netanyahu asserted, Washington’s Arab allies would drift into Iran’s orbit. “The only way I can explain what will happen to such regimes is to give you an example from the past of what happened to one staunch ally of the United States, and a great champion of peace, when another aggressive power loomed large. I’m referring to the late King Hussein [of Jordan] … who was an unequalled champion of peace. The same King Hussein in many ways subordinated his country to Saddam Hussein when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. Saddam seemed all-powerful, unchallenged by the United States, and until the U.S. extracted Kuwait from Saddam’s gullet, King Hussein was very much in Iraq’s orbit. The minute that changed, the minute Saddam was defeated, King Hussein came back to the Western camp.”

One of Iran’s goals, Netanyahu said, is to convince the moderate Arab countries not to enter peace treaties with Israel. Finally, he said, several countries in Iran’s neighborhood might try to develop nuclear weapons of their own. “Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons could spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The Middle East is incendiary enough, but with a nuclear arms race it will become a tinderbox,” he said.

Few in Netanyahu’s inner circle believe that Iran has any short-term plans to drop a nuclear weapon on Tel Aviv, should it find a means to deliver it. The first-stage Iranian goal, in the understanding of Netanyahu and his advisers, is to frighten Israel’s most talented citizens into leaving their country. “The idea is to keep attacking the Israelis on a daily basis, to weaken the willingness of the Jewish people to hold on to their homeland,” Moshe Ya’alon said. “The idea is to make a place that is supposed to be a safe haven for Jews unattractive for them. They are waging a war of attrition.”

The Israeli threat to strike Iran militarily if the West fails to stop the nuclear program may, of course, be a tremendous bluff. After all, such threats may just be aimed at motivating President Obama and others to grapple urgently with the problem. But Netanyahu and his advisers seem to believe sincerely that Israel would have difficulty surviving in a Middle East dominated by a nuclear Iran. And they are men predisposed to action; many, like Netanyahu, are former commandos.

As I waited in the Knesset cafeteria to see Netanyahu, I opened a book he edited of his late brother’s letters. Yoni Netanyahu, a commando leader, was killed in 1976 during the Israeli raid on Entebbe, and his family organized his letters in a book they titled Self-Portrait of a Hero. In one letter, Yoni wrote to his teenage brother, then living in America, who had apparently been in a fight after someone directed an anti-Semitic remark at him. “I see … that you had to release the surplus energy you stored up during the summer,” Yoni wrote. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s too bad you sprained a finger in the process. In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with a good fist fight; on the contrary, if you’re young and you’re not seriously hurt, it won’t do you real harm. Remember what I told you? He who delivers the first blow, wins.”

This entry was posted on Apr 03, 2009 at 03:07:02 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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This entry was posted on Apr 03, 2009 at 01:00:18 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Richard Goldstone, right, will lead the fact-finding investigation into the Gaza war

The United Nations has appointed a former war crimes prosecutor to investigate offences allegedly committed by Israeli and Palestinian fighters during Israel's war on Gaza.

Richard Goldstone, a Jewish judge from South Africa, will lead a fact-finding team on the mission, ordered by the Human Rights Council in January.

"I am confident the mission will be in a position to assess, in an independent and impartial manner, all human rights and humanitarian law violations committed in the context of the Gaza conflict," Goldstone said in a statement issued on Friday.

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Other members of the group are Christine Chinkin, a British professor of international law, Hina Jilani, a Pakistani lawyer and retired Irish army colonel Desmond Travers.

Palestinian focus

The investigation's mandate is to focus only on Palestinian victims of the 22-day war.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed when Israel launched a two-week ground offensive on Gaza in December and January after a week of aerial bombardment.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights put the final death toll at 1,417, including 926 civilians, and published a list of their names.

The Israeli military, however, says only 295 civilians were among 1,116 Palestinians killed between December 27 and January 18, without providing a list of the dead.

It insists it did everything it could to prevent casualties among Gaza civilians during the war, including dropping leaflets and sending phone messages to civilians to evacuate certain areas.

The military also claims Hamas fighters used civilians as human shields, booby-trapped homes and shot at troops from densely populated areas.

Israeli co-operation

Israeli officials on Friday did not say whether or not they would co-operate with the UN investigation.

It has rejected previous human rights council investigations, including one led by Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, calling them "biased".

The Israeli military earlier in the week closed its own investigation into claims that Israeli troops shot unarmed Palestinian women and children during the Gaza war.

Military investigators said on Monday that they "found crucial components of [the allegations] were based on hearsay and were not supported by specific personal knowledge".

This entry was posted on Apr 03, 2009 at 11:39:12 am and is filed under Human Rights.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Israeli policies encourage "resistance", which only ensures that the day will come when Syria will free the Golan Heights "through peace or through war".

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says all Israeli governments have pursued hawkish policies only to give rise to the philosophy of resistance.

In an interview with the al-Sharq newspaper on Thursday, Assad said there is enough evidence to assume that Tel Aviv will never seek peace.

"All Israeli governments are the same: Ariel Sharon carried out a massacre in Palestine, and [Ehud] Barak aided the war in Gaza in that there is no difference between the right and the left in Israel," he explained. "This enemy does not want peace."

Assad described how normal citizens have grown tired of the sixty years of Israeli efforts to grab more land and occupy other territories.

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"From the war of Palestine (in 1948) to the occupation of the Golan (in the Six Day War in 1967) people are becoming more hostile towards Israel. There may come a generation that is unwilling to talk peace," he said.

His remarks are considered a reaction to a Thursday announcement by Israel's new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman -- who ruled out the possibility of Israel withdrawing from the Golan Heights.

"There is no cabinet resolution regarding negotiations with Syria, and we have already said that we will not agree to withdraw from the Golan Heights," said Lieberman in an interview with Israeli daily Ha'aretz.

"Whoever thinks that he will achieve something by way of concessions - no, he will only invite more pressure and more wars. If you want peace, prepare for war," he added.

Israel captured the Golan Heights following the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the Syrian territory in 1981.

Under the auspices of Turkey, Israel and Syria last May launched peace talks aimed at reaching a comprehensive peace agreement.

Negotiations reached a stalemate in September after the resignation of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.

Syria then withdrew from the talks in protest at the latest Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip -- in late December 2008 and January 2009 -- where at least 1,330 Palestinians lost their lives to the three-week carnage.

"When a citizen loses hope - he will turn to the path of resistance, in one from or the other," Assad reacted to the new Israeli stance.

"What is the alternative?" he asked. "The parallel route to the peace process is resistance. The Israeli will not come by his own will, so there is no alternative but for him to overcome fear."

"There is no escaping the fact that the day will come when we will free the Golan, through peace or through war," he explained.

This entry was posted on Apr 03, 2009 at 10:21:18 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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GAZA -- The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement said on Thursday it would not sign any agreement with Egypt that may include banning of arms flow into the Gaza Strip.

"We can not pledge to stop bringing weapons under any agreement we sign with Egypt and we can not sign on anything that could negatively affect the process of resistance on Palestine land," said Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Ezz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas.

"The arms that reach the clean and honest hands go only to resist the Zionist occupation. It is not a smuggling; it is one of the requirements for the dignity and glory of this nation," he added in a statement sent to media.

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Abu Obaida's statement came a few days after Israeli intelligence officials said arms continued to flow into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip through its southern border with Egypt despite the efforts of the Egyptian government to curb the smuggling.

Egypt has mediated between Hamas and Israel on several issues and succeeded in brokering a ceasefire between the two sides from June to December 2008. Egypt also mediated to secure a prisoner exchange since Hamas captured an Israeli soldier in 2006.

This entry was posted on Apr 03, 2009 at 10:16:15 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him."

What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.

Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances.

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While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force.

Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s - always denying that it did so - but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile.

President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether.

Today, most observers - including Amnesty International - tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations.

Israel's campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel's 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General's office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries ... International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."

In the Gaza fighting, Israel has again tried to transform international law through violations. For example, its military lawyers authorized the bombing of a police cadet graduation ceremony, killing at least 63 young Palestinian men. Under international law, such deliberate killings of civilian police are war crimes. Yet Israel treats all employees of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip as terrorists, and thus combatants. Secretaries, court clerks, housing officials, judges - all were, in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets for liquidation.

Israeli jurists also instructed military commanders that any Palestinian who failed to evacuate a building or area after warnings of an impending bombardment was a "voluntary human shield" and thus a participant in combat, subject to lawful attack. One method of warning employed by Israeli gunners, dubbed "knocking on the roof," was to fire first at a building's corner, then, a few minutes later, to strike more structurally vulnerable points. To imagine that Gazan civilians - penned into the tiny Gaza Strip by Israeli troops, and surrounded by the chaos of battle - understood this signal is fanciful at best.

Israel has a lengthy history of unpunished abuses of international law - among the most flagrant its decades-long colonization of the West Bank. To its credit, much of the world has refused to ratify Israel's violations. Unfortunately, our government is an exception, having frequently provided diplomatic cover for Israel's abuses. Our diplomats have vetoed 42 U.N. Security Council resolutions to shelter Israel from the consequences of its often illegal behavior.

We must break that habit now, or see international law perverted in ways that can harm us all. Our government has already been seduced to follow, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Israel's example of targeted killings. This policy alienates civilians, innocently killed and wounded in these crude strikes, and deepens the determination of enemies to harm us by any means possible.

We do not want civilian police in the United States to be bombed, nor to have anyone "knock on our roofs." For our own sakes and for the world's, Israel's impunity must end.

George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.

This entry was posted on Apr 02, 2009 at 11:06:19 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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I have been under fire of late from two diametrically opposite quarters. First, the fanatical, self-worshiping Zionists who think that non-Jewish suffering should never ever be compared with Jewish suffering.

Needless to say, this psychotic attitude stems from deep-seated convictions that a Jew is a special creature whose life is worth more than the rest of humanity. Haven’t we noticed, for example, how Israel has made “Gilad Shalit”, the Israeli soldier imprisoned by Hamas, a household name all over the world, while next to nothing is mentioned about the estimated 10,000 Palestinian political and resistance prisoners languishing in Israeli dungeons and concentration camps?

And, Second, some pro-Palestinian activists who believe that I should avoid invoking the holocaust in my writings lest this help legitimize the Zionist narrative and inadvertently justify Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

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To our pro-Palestinian activists, I, with all due respect, would like to say the following: I sincerely believe that we would be walking in the path of immorality if we denied or belittled other people’s suffering. Indeed, it is imperative that we retain our humanity and moral fabric in the course of this legitimate struggle against the evil state. We must never imitate or emulate their ways and tactics. This would be self-defeating, self-destructive and immensely demoralizing.

Moreover, we must refrain from saying or doing things that would make others portray us as inherent enemies of Jews, because we are not.

We also need to be constantly vigilant and cautious about what we say and how we say it, lest we inadvertently besmirch the legitimacy of our just cause.

Israel is so manifestly criminal and ugly that we don’t need to deny anyone’s suffering to prove this plain fact.

In short, we don’t have to shoot ourselves in the foot. It is wrong and it hurts us a lot.

Obviously, the Zionists’ “arguments” are motivated, as always, by ill-will and a malicious desire to silence critics of Israeli criminality whose phantasmagoric expressions we all witnessed recently in the Gaza Strip.

The subject of contention this time has been an article I published a few days ago, entitled “Shame on us,” in which I strongly criticized efforts by some dubious “peace activists” to bamboozle some innocent Palestinian children from some impoverished localities into playing music before “holocaust survivors.”

This is what happened last week when a dozen young musicians from the Jenin Refugee Camp, in the northern West Bank, were taken surreptitiously to Tel Aviv where they were made to play a serenade before some elderly Zionists , some of whom veterans from the many criminal wars Israel had waged on our people. And as I said in the article, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was not carried out by UFOs but by the very people our children are now being asked to cheer up.

Understandably, the not-so-innocent event left many Palestinians infuriated by the cheap exploitation of these kids for Israeli hasbara purposes. As one who lost three uncles in one day to Zionist murderers in 1954, I felt deeply wounded and humiliated by that event.

I am actually not against reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews. I don’t and never will view Jews as our inherent enemies. Some Jews are actually among the most effective supporters of our national cause. Those we salute for their honesty and morality.

However, it is obvious that true reconciliation in this part of the world requires that the slate be made thoroughly clean. Usurped rights must be returned to rightful owners, and wrongs must be rectified. This I say to honest and conscientious Jews who are genuinely interested in justice and peace.

But to the Zionists I would like to say that the following: the latest point of contention is not about music or even peace. This is first and foremost about human dignity of which the children of the holocaust and their children and grand children and great grandchildren have been trying to rob us.

And whether you like it or not, for us, at least, you represent the real Wehrmacht, the real SS and real Gestapo. You are the Nazis of our time. This is what we see from our vantage point. This is what much of the world sees. This is what many honest and conscientious Jews see.

You stole our country, you murdered our people, you destroyed our homes, and you expelled and dispersed the bulk of our people to the four corners of the world. And after all of this, you have the audacity to dupe our children to sing and play music to you? This is simply beyond, far beyond, Chutzpah.

Some of you habitually babble the word “hatred” whenever a Palestinian asserts his people’s humanity and dignity.

Well, you are really sick to the bone if you think Palestinians must sacrifice their dignity in order to become a hate-free people according to the Zionist lexicon. We will not pay tribute to the killers of our children, we will not show respect to our grave-diggers.

Besides, who do you think you are anyway to lecture us on hatred? After all, you represent and embody hatred in its ugliest form. The extirpation of a people from its ancestral homeland from time immemorial is a satanic act par excellence. The destruction and obliteration of hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages to fulfill Jewish nationalism is diabolical act of the highest order.

Your recent blitzkrieg in Gaza during which your Nazi-like army ganged up on a helpless, unprotected civilian population, exterminating them with bombs and missiles and incinerating their children with White Phosphorus proved once again that you are no better than the hateful Nazis you curse day and night for what they did to you sixty years ago.

Well, try to get yourselves out of this cocoon of self-denial. The Palestinian people don’t hate music nor do they teach their kids to hate Jews or non-Jews, it is your evil and murderous actions that generate hatred against you not only among Palestinians and Muslims but among many other people around the world.

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NEW JERSEY-- Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to resistance, self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.

In a press statement, Falk stated that the last war on the Gaza Strip revealed the huge disparity between the Israeli army which is equipped with all kinds of weapons and the unarmed Palestinians who live under an unjust siege, reiterating that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza.

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The UN official underscored that Israel has a colonial, violent and criminal nature, adding that Israel waged a war on Gaza because the Palestinians hold one of its soldiers while there are more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails.

As for trying Israeli leaders on charges of war crimes, the UN official said the UN General Assembly according to its charter has the right to form an international court to try Israeli leaders, pointing out that he will submit recommendations urging the UN to move from investigation into Israeli war crimes to the stage of leveling charges.

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Avigdor Lieberman, the new Israeli foreign minister, has been questioned by police on suspicion of corruption.

Israeli police said that Lieberman had been placed under caution on Thursday and questioned for more than seven hours at the national fraud squad headquarters in central Israel, as part of an ongoing investigation.

"Avigdor Lieberman was questioned under caution by police today for seven-and-a-half hours on suspicion of carrying out the following: bribery, money laundering and breach of trust," Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said.

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The long-running investigation is examining Lieberman's business dealings.

His lawyer and daughter have also been interrogated.

Lieberman denies all of the allegations.

In a statement issued by his office, Lieberman said he is "in a hurry to end this inquiry which has gone on for 13 years. The minister co-operated and answered the investigators' questions".

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Jerusalem, said: "Lieberman has actually complained about the way that this investigation has been dragged out, he says it is having a very damaging effect on his public image and he has filed a petition to the court asking for it all to be speeded up.

She noted that the previous government of Ehud Olmert "was brought down by exactly these kind of corruption allegations".

Lieberman became Israeli foreign minister on Tuesday after weeks of talks during which Binyamin Netanyahu, the new prime minister, brought together a ruling coalition.

He is a controversial politician with ultra-nationalist views, which have left analysts doubting the possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians during his tenure.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gideon Levy of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said: "One way or the other, this [investigation] should come to an end, hopefully soon, because it is impossible to [be] Israel's foreign minister and to be under such heavy suspicion.

"In any normal country, he [Lieberman] would not have been nominated at all with such suspicions, but in Israel everything is possible, and we have to wait and see what will come out of those investigations."

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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM -- 02 April (The Pal Telegraph)- Jewish settlers seized a house belonging to a Palestinian citizen at Al-Sa’diya quarter in the old city of occupied Jerusalem claiming its ownership.

A reporter from Palestine Telegraph said dozens of settlers broke into the house and forced the family out threatening them with weapons and violence. They threw the rightful home owners property onto the streets. Despite the families objections, they were forced to leave their home after Israeli police intervened supporting the settlers. Vehicles from the Jerusalem Occupation municipality destroyed a small shop near Shmidet School at Nablus Street in downtown Jerusalem.

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The occupation arrested 27 more Palestinian citizens from various West Bank governorates, adding to the 11 thousand plus Palestinian prisoners languishing in the Israeli jails for decades.

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BETHLEHEN - A teenage Israeli settler was killed and a child injured in an apparent attack by a Palestinian wielding an ax near the settlement of Bat Ayin, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Thursday.

Israel’s Magen David ambulance service attempted to rescue the 16-year-old but failed. The seven-year-old child injured in the attack was taken to Hadassah Hospital in East Jerusalem.

According to news reports the alleged attacker managed to flee.

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In the nearby Palestinian village of Safa, Israeli Occupation Forces overran the town, imposing a curfew and raiding houses. According to witnesses, more than 50 military vehicles have invaded the village. According to witnesses in the village, 28 Palestinians have been detained. It is not known where they are held. Israeli troops are firing in the air. Israeli forces also invaded the town of Surif.

A self-proclaimed Palestinian armed group calling itself the Imad Mughniyya Brigades, after a slain Hizbullah leader, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement received by Ma’an. The group said that the operation was in response to the “crimes committed against Palestinians by the occupation.”

The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, praised the attack. In a statement the group said it “congratulates this heroic attack that comes as a normal response to the Israeli assaults against Palestinians, to Netanyahu, and to threats to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

It has also been revealed that the father of the 7-year-old victim is Ofer Gamliel, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for attempting to bomb a Palestinian girls school in Jerusalem in 2002. He and his co-conspirators were known as the "Bat Ayin Militia."

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LONDON _ The delivery of munitions in the Zionist entity from the US earlier this month has thrown President Barack Obama's commitment to maintaining peaceful relations between Israel and Palestine into question, according to Amnesty International.

The humanitarian group said Thursday that the arrival of the Wehr Elbe, a German cargo ship, and her delivery of 300 containers of munitions to the Israeli port of Ashdod suggested the new administration will not act to prevent further attacks against civilians.

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A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the delivery of munitions to Ashdod had been completed successfully, but said they were destined for a US ammunition stockpile held in the Zionist entity.

However, under an agreement with the US, the Israeli's could use the munitions for their own purposes if it was required.

The Pentagon said although they were looking for ways to restrict Israel's use of some US munitions, they had not yet come to an agreement.

Amnesty International's arms control campaign manager Brian Wood said given the suspected war crimes the group says to have identified in the recent Gaza conflict, Obama should not have allowed the shipment to be delivered to Israel after it left the US on December 20th.
"There is a great risk that the new munitions may be used by the Israeli military to commit further violations of international law, like the ones committed during the war in Gaza," said Wood.

"We are urging all governments to impose an immediate and comprehensive suspension of arms to Israel and to all Palestinian armed groups, until there is no longer a substantial risk of serious human rights violations."

The Wehr Elbe left North Carolina on 20th December 2008, and arrived in Ashdod on March 22nd. It is reported to have been carrying a net weight of 14,000 tons of munitions.

Amnesty International also expressed its concern Obama had shown no intention of cutting back the billions of dollars in military aid which were promised to Israel in a ten-year agreement by George Bush's previous administration.

Wood added: "Legally and morally, this US arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the extent of the evidence showing how military equipment and munitions of this kind were recently used by the Israeli forces for war crimes. Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in US law."

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Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit has instructed the Military Police Investigation unit to close the inquiry into Israeli soldiers' accounts of serious violations of the army's rules of engagement during the Gaza Massacre or as the IDF so winningly calls it: “Operation Cast Lead”. It turns out the General discovered all the charges "were based on hearsay and not first-hand experience." Just a bunch of rumors.

Thank God for that. Those shells were just rumors, the ones that hit the U.N. warehouse and the al-Quds Hospital. It wasn’t white phosphorus. The jellyfish-like white tentacles that are a signature for a white phosphorus burst were probably a Palestinian fireworks display. The Abu Halima family was wrong. There was no shell that exploded in their house killing four children. Human Right Watch made a mistake. It must have been a sandstorm or a jinn.

“There are houses where excrement was smeared on the walls, or where dry piles of it were found in corners. In many cases, the smells indicated that soldiers had urinated on piles of clothing or inside a washing machine. In all the houses the toilets were overflowing and clogged, and there was filth all around. When the Abu Eidas returned to house No. 5 in Jabalya, they discovered pots of urine and excrement in the refrigerator.”

Where did she come up with this tall tale? The courageous Israelis who commented on her article nailed her good, “What Propaganda”, said Gershon Reed” , “Yes, Amira War is Hell”, said Baruch Gold. “More Hamas Propaganda”, said “Rambo”.

In an effort to clear up confusion Israeli army chief Gabi Ashkenazi announced, "I can say that the IDF is the most moral army in the world." Well there you have it. It comes from the Chief of Staff, himself. The International Red Cross complained that the Israeli army was firing on ambulances. No doubt the charge is a lie. An Israeli handwritten order on a piece of paper that stated: “Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue’, was obviously just a joke. Have humanitarian organizations no sense of humor?

Amos Harel, the Haaretz military affairs reporter, tells about the testimony given to Danny Zamir who interviewed soldiers who had graduated from his pre-military preparatory program at Oranim Academic College and who had fought in Gaza. Zamir claimed that soldiers told him accounts of soldiers killing a woman and two of her children, shooting and killing an elderly Palestinian woman, and destroying property at will. Supposedly a soldier told Zamir, "That what's great in Gaza, you could say - you see someone walking down a track, not necessarily armed, and you can simply shoot them. In our case, it was an elderly woman.” Obviously Harel or Zamir made it all up.

In another article Harel brings up testimonies about the army’s use of the so-called "neighbor procedure". What’s wrong with asking a Palestinian to invite his neighbors to come out for a polite chat with the Israeli army? Harel says Israeli soldiers force Palestinians to do this. Nonsense. Hearsay. Baseless slander. Israelis don’t take human shields. By definition that’s only something Arabs do.

Another Haaetz columnist Gideon Levy wrote, “An army whose armored corps has yet to encounter an enemy tank and whose pilots have yet to face an enemy combat jet in 36 years has been trained to think that the only function of a tank is to crush civilian cars and that a pilot's job is to bomb residential neighborhoods.” What does Levy know? An old woman could be a suicide bomber. A six year old could be a suicide bomber. So the IDF destroyed 20 ambulances. Ambulances could be carrying terrorists. As a U.S. bumper sticker said in Vietnam days, “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”

Bleeding heart Amnesty International bellyached about the use of flechettes in Gaza. “Flechettes are 4cm long metal darts that are sharply pointed at the front, with four fins at the rear. Between 5,000 and 8,000 are packed into 120mm shells which are generally fired from tanks..” They are “ anti-personnel weapon designed to penetrate dense vegetation”. Well, doesn’t Israel have to fight the terrorists who hide in Gaza’s vast jungles? Amnesty claims Wafa' Nabil Abu Jarad, a 21-year-old pregnant mother of two, was one of those killed by flechettes in Gaza. Where does it come up with this science fiction?

Since the IDF is a most moral army the photos of hateful graffitti soldiers allegedly wrote on houses in Gaza were necessarily faked. Journalist Amira Hass says there were sentences like “We came to annihilate you; Death to the Arabs; Kahane was right; No tolerance, we came to liquidate.” She writes about scribblings cursing the prophet Muhammad. Clearly bogus. So what if the graffiti “appears alongside the names of army units and individual soldiers.” Hasn’t she heard of Photoshop?

And where did the Israeli journalist Uri Blau come up with this dubious report? “Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty.” He claims “A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, 1 shot, 2 kills.’ He even has a photo. Still, he must have made a mistake. The most moral army in the world doesn’t shoot pregnant women. It wouldn’t brag about its cruelty on casual wear. Givati Brigade T-shirts no doubt feature purple bougainvillea flowers emblazoned with the slogan “Purity in Arms”.

This entry was posted on Apr 01, 2009 at 10:10:04 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Shortly before he was sworn in as Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview conducted and published Tuesday by US magazine The Atlantic that the US president's challenge is to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"The Obama presidency has two great missions: Fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu stated, referring to the Iranian threat as a “hinge of history” and adding that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

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The new Israeli prime minister took a blunt tone in the interview, claiming that the entire world should fear the day Iran possesses a nuclear weapon. "You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs," he said.

According to Netanyahu, the Islamic republic threatens many other countries apart from Israel, and so his mission over the next several months is to convince the world of the broad danger posed by Iran.

Netanyahu, who clarified he would manage Israel’s relationship with Washington personally, addressed Barack Obama's softened approach towards Iran, saying he would support the US president's decision to engage Iran, as long as negotiations brought about a quick end to Iran’s nuclear program.

“How you achieve this goal is less important than achieving it,” he said, but he added that he was skeptical that Iran would respond positively to Obama’s appeals.

The new prime minister explained that he believes economic pressure could yield positive results. “I think the Iranian economy is very weak, which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means.”

The article stated that Netanyahu would not suggest a deadline for American progress on the Iran nuclear program, though one of his aides said pointedly that Israeli time lines are now drawn in months, “not years.”

Some of the Israeli prime minister's advisors, who were also interviewed, said they believe Iran’s defenses remain penetrable, and that Israel would not necessarily need American approval to launch an attack.

“The problem is not military capability, the problem is whether you have the stomach, the political will, to take action,” one of them said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As for a possible dispute between himself and the US administration in terms of the settlement issue, Netanyahu said, “I can only point to what I did as prime minister in the first round. I certainly didn’t build new settlements" – perhaps pointing to a "natural growth" in the West Bank settlement, which the Obama administration is also expected to object to.”

Asked if he could foresee agreeing on a “grand bargain” with Obama, in which he would move forward on talks with the Palestinians in exchange for a robust American response to Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli prime minister said, “We intend to move on the Palestinian track independent of what happens with Iran, and I hope the US moves to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons regardless of what happens on the Palestinian track.”

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USMEP report: Israel and US must take 'a more pragmatic approach toward Hamas.'

By Max Ajl

The U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP), whose president is Henry Siegman, just released a report, entitled, "A Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement." The Executive Summary observes that “In short, the next six to twelve months may well represent the last chance for a fair, viable and lasting solution.”

What is the USMEP? Hardly a radical institution. It spun off from the Council on Foreign Relations, establishmentarian think-tank par excellence. The authors of the report, most of the project’s Senior Advisors and board members, include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chuck Hagel, Lee H. Hamilton, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, Thomas R. Pickering, Brent Scowcroft,Theodore C. Sorensen, Paul A. Volcker, and James D. Wolfensohn. These are not–and this is neither insult nor encomium–the Nasrallahs or the Noam Chomskys of the world. They are the most conservative, placid, members in good standing of the committee to protect the status quo one could hope to find. This gives the report greatly added heft. Will it be enough? We shall see.

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It does not couch its recommendations in such idealist naiveté like concerns regarding “social justice” or national self-determination. It speaks directly to security issues, noting that “Although a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace would not erase Al Qaeda, it would help drain the swamp in which it and other violent and terrorist movements thrive, and eliminate a major source of global Muslim anti-Americanism,” seven years ago a radical argument, today, conservative wisdom.

It fends off the argument of political infeasibility, or the lack of sufficient political will, noting that “According to polls, most Israeli and Palestinian public opinions back a fair settlement, and Arab countries now offer unprecedented support for the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002,” suggesting that the problem is turning inchoate opinion into political action.

And it presents the brief for acting with dispatch: “Failure to act would prove extremely costly. It would not only undermine current efforts to weaken extremist groups, bolster our moderate allies and rally regional support to stabilize Iraq and contain Iran, but would also risk permanent loss of the two-state solution as settlements expand and become entrenched and extremists on both sides consolidate their hold.” The report’s authors recognize that if the two state settlement is not emplaced now, it will be emplaced never.

It does not kowtow to the “Israel Lobby,” nor to Zionist sentiment that demands complete Palestinian capitulation, noting that the plan, which must be “fair, viable, and sustainable,” must also be based on UNSCR 242 and 338, the principles agreed to in the 2003 Road Map and the 2007 Annapolis proceedings, and must demand a return to the Green Lines, land swaps on a 1:1 basis, a "fair" resolution to the refugee problem (although it explicitly prohibits a “general right of return”), dual-and-divided sovereignty over Jerusalem, and a de-militarized Palestinian state.

It suggests Israeli engagement with Syria, as well as accepting Hamas as a legitimate interlocutor of Palestinian political will, moving away from punitive boycotts or sanctions. As the report puts it, Israel and the US must take “a more pragmatic approach toward Hamas,” although it does call for a “government that agrees to a ceasefire with Israel [and] accepts President Mahmoud Abbas as the chief negotiator.”

It is not clear if the Palestinian citizenry, sick of the quisling Fatah’s betrayals, will accept such a condition, although this does not detract from the point that coming from US power circles, this is a very welcome document. And there is some evidence that it will: as Roger Cohen noted in the NYT on March 26, Siegman told him, through oral and written media, that although Hamas would withhold recognition of Israel, “it would remain in a Palestinian national unity government that reached a referendum-endorsed peace settlement with Israel. De facto, rather than de jure, recognition can be a basis for a constructive relationship, as Israel knows from the mutual benefits of its shah-era dealings with Iran.”

Its suggestion for dealing with the refugee problem are welcome, if imperfect:

“For Israelis the “right of return” issue is the ultimate “third rail.” For Palestinians, the entitlement of four million refugees to justice and dignity is an absolute. A formula must be found to protect Israel from an influx of refugees, assist Palestine to absorb as many refugees as possible, and offer Palestinian refugees options for productive and dignified lives in Palestine or elsewhere, closing refugee camps wherever they exist.”

Perhaps most worrisome is the section where the report deals with water issues. The document states that:

“Still, terms will have to be reached protecting Israel’s access to aquifers lying largely beneath Palestinian territory while permitting Palestine to develop its water resources to support an expanding population as well as agricultural and industrial development.”

They suggest desalinization as a way to elide the problems of satisfying both of the above conditions, which seem to be in real tension with one another. The report also outlines fairly reasonable solutions to the issues of borders, peace with Syria, and security, recommending extensive use of the United Nations as a peacekeeping force in the region. One really hopes Obama is listening.

- Max Ajl is a writer and activist, living in Brooklyn. He has written on Latin America for the Guardian and the New Statesman, and writes on Israel/Palestine at his blog, www.maxajl.com [Jewbonics]. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

This entry was posted on Mar 31, 2009 at 10:18:41 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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ECONOMIC PEACE IS EASY:
END THE OCCUPATION AND LET THE PALESTINIANS PROSPER IN PEACE

Israel's new prime minister is up to his old tricks. Returning to office after 10 years, pro-war Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu hopes to bamboozle the world again, this time with talk of "economic peace" for Palestinians. It’s a desperate attempt to re-brand Israel after its recent one-sided military assault in Gaza. It won’t work. No PR ruse can paper over the world’s condemnation of that bellicose brutality.

The Palestinian economy is in shambles due to Israel’s intentional ongoing strangulation by military, political, financial, and resource-stealing means.

Instead of ending its illegal 41-year military occupation, Israel hopes to continue it with only cosmetic changes. Like the old "Roadmap to Peace," the new "highway to economic prosperity" will lead nowhere. Investors won’t risk funds that could be instantly wiped out by the next IDF military adventure. Israel has intentionally destroyed/blocked Palestinians’ airport and deep-water seaports precisely to preclude international trade: why would the world buy this new lie?

If Israel wants peace instead of Palestinian land, it has had six decades to seek it. Instead, it has never missed a chance to give war a chance. Rather than offer olive branches, it chooses to uproot millions of olive trees. It shouts “security” while collectively punishing Palestinian civilians. It thinks nothing of shooting non-violent protesters and killing women and children sheltered in UN buildings. Now it seeks a partnership built on oppression? That is not called a just and lasting peace; that’s called slavery.

Bombing civilians does not build confidence. It leads to more war. To earn real trust, Israel would need to act as a trustworthy partner. Since it refuses, the solution is simple:

The Palestinian people call on nations, companies (www.whoprofits.org), communities and individuals worldwide to use these non-violent social, cultural and economic BDS tools to let Israel know that it has left the world with no alternative to ending its occupation!

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In this latest onslaught against Palestinians, Israel has attacked a university, the Ministry of Education, schools across the Gaza Strip, and several UNRWA schools. Such attacks against learning centers are not unique for Israel.

Most particularly since 1975, Israel has infringed upon the right of education for Palestinians by closing universities, schools and kindergartens, and by shelling, shooting at, and raiding hundreds of schools and several universities throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.

Nor have these attacks been limited against Palestinians. As academics in Lebanon, we are all too familiar with Israeli onslaughts against educational centers. In its latest assault, in 2006, for example, Israel destroyed over 50 schools throughout Lebanon, and particularly schools designed for the economically disadvantaged in the South.

We thus stand, as academics in Lebanon, in urging our colleagues, regionally and internationally, to oppose this ongoing scholasticide and to support the just demand for academic boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. Specifically, we ask our colleagues worldwide to support the call by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to comprehensively and consistently boycott and disinvest from all Israeli academic and cultural institutions, and to refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joining projects with Israeli institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.

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We further call on the enforcement of Lebanese anti-normalization laws with Israel, and thus for the prosecution of individuals and institutions in Lebanon that violate those laws and conduct collaborations, associations or investments in Israel or with Israelis.

We salute the recent statement by the Scottish Committee for the Universities of Palestine calling for a boycott of Israel, the letter signed by 300 Canadian academics to Canadian Prime Minister Harper asking for sanctions against Israel, and the appeal by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee supporting a ban on collaborations between Canadian and Israeli universities.

Academics in Lebanon who have signed on to this petition consist of faculty, lecturers, and graduate students from the University of Balamand, the American University of Beirut, the Lebanese American University, Notre Dame University, Lebanese University, Beirut Arab University, USEK, Lebanese International University and Global University.

We call on our colleagues to add their name to this statement calling for full academic boycott of Israel and Israeli institutions, and calling our colleagues, throughout the world, and most particularly those in the Arab world and those claiming to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, to comprehensively and consistently boycott and divest from all Israeli academic and cultural institutions, and to refrain from normalization in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.

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Palestinians commemorate Land Day in the village of Maasara near Bethlehem.

March 30, 2009

By Jonathan Cook - Arrabeh

Palestinians across the Middle East were due to commemorate Land Day today, marking the anniversary of clashes in 1976 in which six unarmed Palestinians were shot dead by the Israeli army as it tried to break up a general strike.

Although Land Day is one of the most important anniversaries in the Palestinian calendar, sometimes referred to as the Palestinians’ national day, the historical event it marks is little spoken of and rarely studied.

“Maybe its significance is surprising given the magnitude of other events in Palestinian history,” said Hatim Kanaaneh, 71, a doctor, who witnessed the military invasion of his village.

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“But what makes Land Day resonate with Palestinians everywhere is that it was the first time Palestinians inside Israel stood together and successfully resisted Israel’s goal of confiscating their land.”

The confrontation took place between the army and a group usually referred to as “Israeli Arabs”, the small minority of Palestinians who managed to remain in their homes during the 1948 war that led to the founding of Israel. Today they number 1.2 million, or nearly one-fifth of Israel’s population.

“We were given citizenship by Israel, but have always been treated as an enemy, perceived of as a threat to the state’s Jewishness,” said Dr Kanaaneh, who last year published his memoir, A Doctor in Galilee, which offers a rare account in English of Palestinian life inside Israel during the Land Day period.

In 1976, Dr Kanaaneh, having completed his medical studies at Harvard University in the United States, was the only physician in Arrabeh.

Israel crushed organised political activity among Israel’s Palestinian citizens between 1948 and 1966, Dr Kanaaneh said. Nonetheless, popular frustration had mounted as the state expropriated privately owned Palestinian land to build new communities for Jewish citizens, many of them recent immigrants. During military rule, historians have noted, vast swathes of land were taken from Palestinians, both from refugees in exile and from Israel’s own citizens. Jews had bought only six per cent of Palestine by the time of the 1948 war, but today the state has nationalised 93 per cent of Israel’s territory.

“Government policy was explicitly to make the land Jewish – or Judaise it, as it was called,” Dr Kanaaneh said.

The announcement in the mid-1970s of the confiscation of a further 2,000 hectares led to the creation of a new body, the National Committee for the Defence of Arab Lands, which provided a more assertive political leadership.

The minority’s decision to strike, Dr Kanaaneh said, shocked the Israeli authorities, which were not used to challenges to official policy. “Both sides understood the significance of the strike. For the first time we were acting as a national minority, and Israel was very sensitive to anything that suggested we had a national identity or a unified agenda, especially over a key resource like land.”

Although the strike was strictly observed by Palestinians throughout Israel, the focus of the protest were three villages in the central Galilee that faced the loss of a large area of prime agricultural land: Arrabeh, Sakhnin and Deir Hanna.

The prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and his defence minster, Shimon Peres, acted on the eve of the strike.

“What was surprising was that they didn’t send in the police, as you’d expect when dealing with citizens of a country, but the army,” Dr Kanaaneh said.

The government’s original plan, he said, was to break the strike and force employees to go to work, but when villagers began throwing stones, the army imposed a curfew.

“When a neighbour called me to attend to his wife who had gone into labour, I walked out of my house towards an armoured vehicle waving my stethoscope,” Dr Kanaaneh said. “A soldier aimed his rifle straight at me and I hurried back inside.”

Ahmed Khalaila, who was 18 and living in Sakhnin, remembered being woken early by loudspeakers. “Soldiers were calling out that we must not leave the house … We couldn’t even look out of the windows,” he said.

When a neighbour stepped outside her house, she was shot and injured, Mr Khalaila said. He and his older brother, Khader, tried to help the woman. When they were about 50 metres from her, Khader was shot in the head.

“He was still breathing and we hoped he could be saved, but there were checkpoints at all the entrances to the village. We knew no ambulance would be coming for him.”

Eventually the family managed to get him into a car and drove towards the nearest hospital. Held at a checkpoint, Mr Khalaila said, the family watched as Khader bled to death as he lay across his younger brother’s legs on the back seat. Khader was 24 and recently married.

No one ever came to investigate what had happened, or offered the family compensation. “It was as if a bird had died,” he said. “No one was interested; no questions were asked in the parliament. Nothing.”

As well as the six deaths, hundreds more Palestinians were injured and sweeping arrests were made of political activists.

Dr Kanaaneh said the stiff resistance mounted by the villagers eventually forced the government to revoke the expropriation order.

Victory, however, was far from clear cut. The next year, Ariel Sharon, as agriculture minister, announced a programme of new Jewish settlements called “lookouts” in the Galilee “to prevent control of state lands by foreigners”, meaning Israel’s own Palestinian citizens. The three villages were surrounded by the lookout communities, which came to be known collectively as Misgav regional council.

“They were intended to be agricultural communities, but Land Day stopped that,” Dr Kanaaneh said. “Instead they became small bedroom communities, and much of the land we defended was passed to Misgav’s jurisdiction.

“Today the owners of the land pay taxes to the regional council rather than their own municipalities, and Misgav can decide, if it wants, to try to confiscate the land again. We may have got our land back, but it is not really in our hands.”

- Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit his website at: www.jkcook.net. (A version of this article originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae, published in Abu Dhabi.)

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Palestinians commemorate Land Day in the village of Maasara near Bethlehem.

March 30, 2009

By Jonathan Cook - Arrabeh

Palestinians across the Middle East were due to commemorate Land Day today, marking the anniversary of clashes in 1976 in which six unarmed Palestinians were shot dead by the Israeli army as it tried to break up a general strike.

Although Land Day is one of the most important anniversaries in the Palestinian calendar, sometimes referred to as the Palestinians’ national day, the historical event it marks is little spoken of and rarely studied.

“Maybe its significance is surprising given the magnitude of other events in Palestinian history,” said Hatim Kanaaneh, 71, a doctor, who witnessed the military invasion of his village.

[More:]

“But what makes Land Day resonate with Palestinians everywhere is that it was the first time Palestinians inside Israel stood together and successfully resisted Israel’s goal of confiscating their land.”

The confrontation took place between the army and a group usually referred to as “Israeli Arabs”, the small minority of Palestinians who managed to remain in their homes during the 1948 war that led to the founding of Israel. Today they number 1.2 million, or nearly one-fifth of Israel’s population.

“We were given citizenship by Israel, but have always been treated as an enemy, perceived of as a threat to the state’s Jewishness,” said Dr Kanaaneh, who last year published his memoir, A Doctor in Galilee, which offers a rare account in English of Palestinian life inside Israel during the Land Day period.

In 1976, Dr Kanaaneh, having completed his medical studies at Harvard University in the United States, was the only physician in Arrabeh.

Israel crushed organised political activity among Israel’s Palestinian citizens between 1948 and 1966, Dr Kanaaneh said. Nonetheless, popular frustration had mounted as the state expropriated privately owned Palestinian land to build new communities for Jewish citizens, many of them recent immigrants. During military rule, historians have noted, vast swathes of land were taken from Palestinians, both from refugees in exile and from Israel’s own citizens. Jews had bought only six per cent of Palestine by the time of the 1948 war, but today the state has nationalised 93 per cent of Israel’s territory.

“Government policy was explicitly to make the land Jewish – or Judaise it, as it was called,” Dr Kanaaneh said.

The announcement in the mid-1970s of the confiscation of a further 2,000 hectares led to the creation of a new body, the National Committee for the Defence of Arab Lands, which provided a more assertive political leadership.

The minority’s decision to strike, Dr Kanaaneh said, shocked the Israeli authorities, which were not used to challenges to official policy. “Both sides understood the significance of the strike. For the first time we were acting as a national minority, and Israel was very sensitive to anything that suggested we had a national identity or a unified agenda, especially over a key resource like land.”

Although the strike was strictly observed by Palestinians throughout Israel, the focus of the protest were three villages in the central Galilee that faced the loss of a large area of prime agricultural land: Arrabeh, Sakhnin and Deir Hanna.

The prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and his defence minster, Shimon Peres, acted on the eve of the strike.

“What was surprising was that they didn’t send in the police, as you’d expect when dealing with citizens of a country, but the army,” Dr Kanaaneh said.

The government’s original plan, he said, was to break the strike and force employees to go to work, but when villagers began throwing stones, the army imposed a curfew.

“When a neighbour called me to attend to his wife who had gone into labour, I walked out of my house towards an armoured vehicle waving my stethoscope,” Dr Kanaaneh said. “A soldier aimed his rifle straight at me and I hurried back inside.”

Ahmed Khalaila, who was 18 and living in Sakhnin, remembered being woken early by loudspeakers. “Soldiers were calling out that we must not leave the house … We couldn’t even look out of the windows,” he said.

When a neighbour stepped outside her house, she was shot and injured, Mr Khalaila said. He and his older brother, Khader, tried to help the woman. When they were about 50 metres from her, Khader was shot in the head.

“He was still breathing and we hoped he could be saved, but there were checkpoints at all the entrances to the village. We knew no ambulance would be coming for him.”

Eventually the family managed to get him into a car and drove towards the nearest hospital. Held at a checkpoint, Mr Khalaila said, the family watched as Khader bled to death as he lay across his younger brother’s legs on the back seat. Khader was 24 and recently married.

No one ever came to investigate what had happened, or offered the family compensation. “It was as if a bird had died,” he said. “No one was interested; no questions were asked in the parliament. Nothing.”

As well as the six deaths, hundreds more Palestinians were injured and sweeping arrests were made of political activists.

Dr Kanaaneh said the stiff resistance mounted by the villagers eventually forced the government to revoke the expropriation order.

Victory, however, was far from clear cut. The next year, Ariel Sharon, as agriculture minister, announced a programme of new Jewish settlements called “lookouts” in the Galilee “to prevent control of state lands by foreigners”, meaning Israel’s own Palestinian citizens. The three villages were surrounded by the lookout communities, which came to be known collectively as Misgav regional council.

“They were intended to be agricultural communities, but Land Day stopped that,” Dr Kanaaneh said. “Instead they became small bedroom communities, and much of the land we defended was passed to Misgav’s jurisdiction.

“Today the owners of the land pay taxes to the regional council rather than their own municipalities, and Misgav can decide, if it wants, to try to confiscate the land again. We may have got our land back, but it is not really in our hands.”

- Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit his website at: www.jkcook.net. (A version of this article originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae, published in Abu Dhabi.)

This entry was posted on Mar 30, 2009 at 08:25:45 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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This entry was posted on Mar 30, 2009 at 08:22:32 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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It is really hard to write on this subject without getting angry. We all know the extent to which Israel can be evil and satanic. After all, we Palestinians have been on the receiving end of Israeli savagery for decades.

In fact, being thoroughly tormented and killed by the children, grand-children and great grandchildren of the holocaust has always been and continues to be “the” Palestinians’ way of life.

However, for some Palestinians to allow themselves to be duped to sing and play music to their oppressors and child-killers is simply beyond the pale of human dignity.

[More:]

It is at least as insulting and humiliating as some Jews were forced or duped to play music to SS, Gestapo and Wehrmacht soldiers during the Second World War. In both cases, the act was meant to humiliate the victims and rob them of the last visages of human dignity.

And now, Jews in Israel are doing the same thing to Palestinians, Nazism’s vicarious victims.

Last week, a few innocent kids from the Jenin refugee camp were surreptiously taken to Tel Aviv to “cheer up and take part in peace-promoting activities.”

However, once there the kids were unceremoniously driven to a reception where they were made to play music and sing to “holocaust survivors,” some of them are former members of the Hagana and Irgun terrorist gangs who had taken part in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

God knows how much Palestinian blood did these so-called “holocaust survivors” shed in 1948 and subsequent years. Certainly, Dir Yasin, Tantura, Dawaymeh, and the numerous other massacres were not committed by UFOs. They were committed in cold blood by these very people our children are now cheering up.

Shame on us a thousand times!

Some of the innocent kids were instructed to utter words that should never be uttered by the victims of Zionism. But the kids apparently felt they had to say anything they were asked to say in order to show gratitude for the Jewish “peace contractor” who got them out of the ghetto, otherwise known as Jenin refugee camp, even for a six-hour outing in Tel Aviv.

I am not against showing genuine sympathy with the victims of the holocaust. However, a sympathy that is manipulated to justify, rationalize or even extenuate the crime against humanity that is Israel is worse than a crime if only because it serves to promote and perpetuate oppression.

As human beings, we Palestinians do sympathize with all victims of Nazism, Stalinism and imperialism, the wept, the over-wept, and especially the unwept who constitute the vast majority of victims.

Having said that, however, I strongly believe that no honest person under the sun has the slightest right to demand that we pay the price for what the Nazis did or may have done to European Jews nearly 70 years ago.

We didn’t send Jews to the ovens. The Germans did. We didn’t starve Jews to death as Jews are doing to us today in the Gaza Strip.

We didn’t incinerate Jews in gas chambers as Jews have recently incinerated Palestinian children with White Phosphorus.

Hence, of all people in this world, Palestinians must never be made to feel guilty for what the Nazis and other Europeans did to Jews. I say so because a feeling of guilt, even a modicum of guilt, on our part, would be construed or misconstrued as a vindication of Zionism, the Nazism of our time.

There are additional reasons that make the latest insensitive manipulation of Palestinian suffering especially ugly and dishonorable.

First, nearly all the young musicians who were taken to Tel Aviv came from the Jenin Refugee camp. For those who have forgotten, this is the very same refugee camp that Israeli tanks pulverized in 2002. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed homes right on top of innocent civilians, including the physically handicapped, while dozens of innocent civilians were systematically massacred, very much like Jews were at Ghetto Warsaw. The massacre at the camp was so hideous that Israel refused to allow UN officials to access the camp to inspect what happened.

Well, again the Nazi analogy is inescapable. Just imagine surviving Jewish children from Treblinka or Bergen Belsen made to sing to SS soldiers!

Second, the disgraceful concert in Tel Aviv comes on the heel of Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza where Israeli warplanes showered the children, women and men of the coastal enclave with White Phosphorus and other missiles and bombs of death while Israeli Jews were gleefully celebrating the “victory on Hamas” and Israeli rabbis preoccupied with classifying gentiles into “children of light” and “children of darkness.”

In Gaza, the Zionist Jews exposed their shame to all the people of the world by acting like primitive barbarians and murderous savages.

Hence, the utter shamefulness of sending Palestinian children to Tel Aviv to help Israel’s hasbara efforts whitewash Israel’s pornographic barbarianism in Gaza.

Finally, it is obvious that the PA bears much of the blame for this disgraceful event. The PA should never allow so called “cultural exchanges” and “cultural normalization” with the murderers of our children, the very state whose leaders and military commanders view us as “scum, vermin and animals” that ought to be exterminated.

Unfortunately, the PA itself encourages some demoralized Palestinians to endear themselves to Israel, even in the cheapest of manners.

The often cordial meetings and exchanging of kisses between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert, the butcher of Gaza, leave one and only impression, not only on the children of the refugee camp in Jenin, but also on TV viewers around the world.

Perhaps the Israeli artillery and war planes were showering Gaza with candy, not White Phosphorus.!!!

This is probably the main message the organizers of the Jenin-Tel Aviv tour wanted to communicate to these miserable kids who are obviously having a hard time recognizing their fathers’ killers.

NEW YORK - A top Spanish court has moved toward starting a probe of six former Bush administration officials including ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in connection with alleged torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, The New York Times said on Saturday.

The criminal investigation would focus on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic justification for torture at the U.S. detention camp in Cuba, the Times said.

The paper said the National Court in Madrid had assigned the case to judge Baltasar Garzon, known for ordering the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

[More:]

Garzon has accepted the case and sent it to the prosecutor's office for review, the newspaper said, citing an official close to the case.

The complaint, prepared by Spanish lawyers with the help of U.S. and European legal experts, also names John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who wrote secret legal opinions saying the president had the authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions, and Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy.

Spain can claim jurisdiction in the case because five Spanish citizens or residents who were prisoners at Guantanamo Bay say they were tortured there.

The other Americans named are William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, Yoo's former boss at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David Addington, chief of staff and legal adviser to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Yoo, already the subject of a Justice Department ethics investigation, declined to comment to the Times. The others either could not be reached or did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the Times said.

Gonzalo Boye, a Madrid lawyer who filed the complaint, said the six Americans had well-documented roles in approving illegal interrogation techniques, redefining torture and abandoning the definition set by the 1984 Torture Convention, the newspaper said.

This entry was posted on Mar 30, 2009 at 06:08:18 am and is filed under American Empire.
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When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Washington replied by launching the Gulf War to reverse the invasion and punish Baghdad for its serial aggressions. Or so Washington said.

Iraq was indeed a serial aggressor, having attacked and waged a long war with Iran in the 1980s, followed by an invasion of Kuwait. What Washington and the compliant US media minimized was that the US had prodded Iraq to attack Iran, soon after the country sloughed off US domination by toppling the Pahlavi regime through which US influence in the country was exercised. With prodding came military aid and the weapons of mass destruction that Washington would later use as the basis for a murderous sanctions regime that killed over one million Iraqis, many of them children. In 1989, when Iraq sounded out the US ambassador, April Glaspie, about a possible invasion of Kuwait, she raised no objection. How odd it must have seemed to Iraq, then, that after fighting one war with US prodding, and launching another with what seemed like implicit US support, that Washington should point to Iraq’s serial aggressions as a pretext for launching its own string of anti-Iraq aggressions beginning in 1990 and lasting to the current day.

[More:]

The US itself is no stranger to serial aggressions, having intervened militarily in countless countries, often without provocation and with the sole objective of enforcing US domination. Whereas the Nazi’s serial aggressions were limited to Europe, those of the US have been carried out on a global scale. The tenth anniversary of one such US-inspired aggression, the 78-day Nato terror bombing of Yugoslavia, has recently passed, without the fanfare usually associated with the exercise of US military prowess. Where were the media retrospectives, the self-adulation commending the West for its humanitarian intervention? If any mainstream news organization ran a story on how much better off Serbia is 10 years after Nato’s humanitarian bombing, I haven’t seen it. Perhaps the absence is due to the reality that anyone setting foot in Belgrade today would be forced to confront what Serbia has become – a state dismembered from a multicultural federation whose once publically- and socially-owned assets have been sold off to investors and corporations from the same countries that sent their air forces to drop ordnance on schools, factories, bridges, a radio-TV building, the Chinese embassy, and civilians.

Perhaps it is because the US has woven a long string of aggressions into its history that its media are inclined to ignore the aggressions of Uncle Sam’s extension in the Middle East, Israel. When they’re not ignoring them, they’re excusing them. It is a matter of some astonishment that Israel can launch attack after attack outside its ceaselessly expanding and amorphous borders and it hardly registers on the consciousness of North Americans, whose media hide these aggressions in plain view.

Israeli warplanes violated Sudanese airspace in January, on a mission to destroy a convoy of trucks said to be carrying arms to be smuggled to resistance fighters in Gaza. While Iranian warplanes bombing a convoy of trucks in Iraq would be met by howls of outrage by the White House and State Department, Israel’s bombing raid in Sudan was sanitized, even celebrated, in The New York Times, as a “daring military operation,” and then quickly forgotten. Official enemies launch illegal attacks; allies carry out daring military operations.

The bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 was another of Israel’s vaunted military operations. This illegal act remains accepted in Western media discourse as a legitimate operation, justified as a preventive measure against Iraq acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to official doctrine, it was only a matter of time before Saddam Hussein acquired the means to send a nuclear warhead hurtling toward Tel Aviv. What makes this scenario implausible is that such a temerarious act would trigger an obliterating counter-strike by the United States. Unless you believe the Iraqi president was insane or had a death wish, neither of which propositions rest on the slightest evidence, this is pure political fantasy.

Iraq may indeed have intended to develop nuclear weapons, but its reasons for doing so probably (if indeed it was heading in this direction) had much to do with the reality that Israel, a country with no shortage of aggressive military operations under it belt, has an estimated 200 nuclear weapons, receives $3 billion annually in military aid from Uncle Sam, and has a penchant for sending its troops and warplanes into battle.

Let’s consider Israel’s serial aggressions, all of which have been motivated by the desire to acquire territory to expand the borders of the Jewish colonial state, or to defend itself against the backlash its expansionist aggressions provoke. We can begin with the 80 percent of Palestinian territory Zionist forces seized by force in 1948, after the UN allocated 56 percent to a Jewish state, a more than generous allotment, considering that Jews made up only one-third of the population, owned less than 10 percent of the land, and were favored by the UN with the fertile coastal areas. There was nothing fair or legitimate about the UN offer. It was carried out over the objections of the majority, but even this corruption of justice was not enough to satisfy the Zionist craving for other people’s land.

In 1956, Israel struck a deal with France and Britain to invade Egypt. France was irritated by Egyptian President Gamal Nasser’s support for the national liberation movement in Algeria, and Britain wanted the return of the recently nationalized Suez Canal to the hands of British capital. In exchange for marching on the Suez Canal, France would transfer nuclear technology to Israel, providing the Zionist state with the basis for its nuclear arsenal. The operation proved to be a contretemps, with the US ordering the conspirators to withdraw. But it did demonstrate to Washington that Israel could be a useful tool in enforcing US foreign policy in the region.

In 1967, Israel seized Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. Later, it launched a series of operations in Lebanon beginning with Operation Litani in 1978, aimed at driving the PLO north of the Litani River. This culminated in an occupation of southern Lebanon that lasted 18 years, from 1982 to 2000, followed by yet another attack in the summer of 2006. Lebanon today has the highest per capita debt in the world, largely thanks to the costs of rebuilding infrastructure Israel destroyed. (1)

Added to Israel’s aggressions are its amply documented violations of the laws of war. Israeli war crimes are a delicate matter in North America, where politicians and the media either steer clear of mentioning them, or step nimbly around them, seeking to avoid the inevitable backlash against anyone who suggests that Israel may not be the shining beacon of democracy in what’s calumniated as the otherwise benighted Middle East. The British press, The Guardian in particular, show fewer reservations. Condemnatory reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Israel’s January 2009 assault on Gaza barely received any attention in the North American media, in stark contrast to the high profile that similarly condemnatory reports receive when they’re aimed at official enemies. By comparison, The Guardian covered a February 23, 2009 Amnesty International report that called on the US to cut off military aid to Israel, because “as a major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and human rights.” (2) Last week, The Guardian reported on a Human Rights Watch investigation that found that Israel had repeatedly and indiscriminately fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza, killing and injuring civilians, a war crime. White phosphorus burns through tissue and can’t be extinguished. It must burn itself out, a process that may take days. In a 71-page report, the rights group concluded that Israel’s “repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells in populated areas of Gaza was not incidental or accidental.” (3) Significantly, Israel initially denied it had used white phosphorus. When the evidence became overwhelming, it admitted it had, but countered that its use was fully in accord with international law. When that was disproved, Israel announced it would launch its own investigation.

In a move that would be considered foolishly gutsy in the United States, The Guardian undertook its own investigation of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, concluding that Israel violated the laws of war. (4) The conclusions drawn by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and The Guardian were corroborated by Israeli soldiers themselves. An Israeli squad commander said,

“What’s great about Gaza — you see a person on a path, he doesn’t have to be armed, you can simply shoot him. In our case it was an old woman on whom I did not see any weapon when I looked. The order was to take down the person, this woman, the minute you see her. There are always warnings, there is always the saying, ‘Maybe he’s a terrorist.’ What I felt was, there was a lot of thirst for blood.” (5)

While the utter brutality of Israeli troops was being laid bare in the pages of The Guardian, across the Atlantic, Israeli war crimes were being minimized in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record. Foreign correspondent Patrick Martin wrote that the failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians “is found in almost every military force (think Serbs in Bosnia, Americans at Abu Ghraib and Canadians in Somali) and has existed as long as there has been war.” (7) What Martin didn’t point out was that Serbs were prosecuted by Nato’s Hague Tribunal for failures to distinguish civilians from combatants, but that US and Canadian atrocities – including those in connection with the terror bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 — have gone unpunished. Martin also failed to mention the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Omar, too, is accused of war crimes, but unlike those committed by Americans, Canadians and Israelis, his have become the subject of prosecution by an international court, one that has yet to issue indictments against anyone but Africans. The court will never prosecute Americans, Russians, and Chinese, who have chosen not to be bound by the court and are able to veto any Security Council resolution ordering the court to undertake an inquiry. Likewise, these countries can veto court inquiries into crimes committed by nationals of allied countries, like Israel, which have also rejected the court’s authority. War crimes, it seems, are intolerable when committed by countries the West seeks a pretext to dominate, but when the same crimes are committed by Americans, Canadians and Israelis, the “everyone is doing it” defense applies.

Meanwhile, as nuclear-armed Israel adds to its string of outrages on the sovereignty of neighboring countries with its bombing raid into Sudan, the Western media spotlight shines on north Korea, the northern half of a peninsula whose division was imposed by outsiders, and has never attacked another country. While official doctrine holds that north Korea invaded south Korea in 1950, it’s hardly possible for Koreans to have invaded Korea. What’s more, the question of who started the war – both sides clashed on and off for up to a year before major hostilities broke out – remains murky. Deciding on what event precipitated the war is like deciding when a hill becomes a mountain. Any attempt to abstract a discrete event from a complex of richly interconnected events as the cause of the war is to play with arbitrariness. Even deciding when the war began and ended (has it ended?) involves an arbitrary demarcation. Hugh Deane argued that the war began in 1945, the moment the US army arrived and suppressed the national liberation People’s Committees. Conceived as a struggle to free the peninsula from foreign domination, the war has never ended, and has lasted 99 years.

Korea, it should be recalled, was colonized by Japan from 1910 to 1945. No sooner had Koreans declared their independence, than US military forces arrived to establish a military government, shot through with former Japanese collaborators. While the Soviets, who agreed to the division of the peninsula, occupied the north, they withdrew their forces in 1948 and allowed the maximal guerrilla leader, Kim Il Sung, to rise to power, rather than imposing their own man, as the United States was to do in the south, when it brought the anti-communist Sygman Rhee, a long-time US resident, to Korea. US troops remain on Korean soil to this day.

The reason the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, (DPRK is the north’s official name), is receiving considerable Western media attention is because it plans to launch a satellite. The launching, it is said by US officials, and repeated uncritically by the US media, is a cover for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that could deliver a nuclear payload as far away as the shores of Alaska. In case north Korea’s launching a satellite strikes anyone as being far from belligerent – certainly not in the same league as flying bombers into another country to destroy its nuclear facilities (as Israel did in Iraq and threatens to do in Iran) the new US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, assures us that, appearances aside, the launching is “a provocative act.” This is duly reported, but nobody asks why. Why should the launching of a satellite, even if the rocket technology is dual-purpose (it can be used to launch satellites and warheads) be provocative? Doesn’t the United States have rockets, satellites and warheads in abundance? The cause for alarm certainly can’t be because the DPRK has launched aggressions against other countries. It hasn’t. On the other hand, the United States and Japan, both with notorious records of employing military force to violate other conutries’ sovereignty, are sounding the alarm. The real reason the DPRK’s satellite launching is depicted as provocative is the same reason its nuclear test was depicted as provocative. Having nuclear warheads and the technology to deliver them expresses the threat of potential self-defense.

So it is that the North American media, playing its accustomed role as private propagandist for US foreign policy, has striven to elevate north Korea’s satellite launching to the provocative act Clinton says it is. The launching of a satellite has become, in The New York Times’ headlines, a missile launching (8), inducing the Japanese to ready their missile interceptors. (9) The Washington Post does The New York Times one better by calling the launching a nuclear test. (10) Even if the DPRK is testing rocket technology that could be used to deploy a nuclear warhead, is this any more reason to be alarmed than the reality that Israel can annihilate its neighbors with nuclear weaponry in numbers and sophistication far greater than north Korea can ever hope to match? The idea that Israel is a responsible country committed to the stability of the Middle East is a fiction; Israel is the main source of instability in the Middle East and has been since 1948. Had Zionists not arrived in Palestine to displace an Arab majority that had lived peacefully with Jews and Christians for centuries, there never would have been an armed struggle waged by the PLO, or an Islamic Jihad and Hamas to carry it on once the PLO’s dominant party, Fatah, faltered with a series of capitulations. Nor would there have been an Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon aimed at destroying the PLO, and therefore no basis for the rise of Hezbollah. As for the idea that Israeli leaders are level headed, look at the carnage Israel visited upon Gaza, ostensibly to deter rocket attacks that have killed 20 people in the last eight years. (11) Or consider this:

“The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel. ‘This rabbi comes to us and says the fight is between the children of light and the children of darkness,’ a reserve sergeant said, recalling a training camp encounter. ‘His message was clear: ‘This is a war against an entire people, not against specific terrorists.’ The whole thing was turned into something very religious and messianic.’” (12)

Lebensraum comes to mind.

While US officials may contrive to regard north Korea’s satellite launching as provocative, it pales in comparison to the provocation of the United States and south Korea holding annual war games exercises along north Korea’s borders, this year larger than ever, and after the new government in Seoul of Lee Myung Bak has departed from the conciliatory line of the previous government, adopting a decidedly hostile posture.

Lest anyone think that north Korea’s impending satellite launching amounts to even a slight threat, consider the testimony of US Navy Admiral Timothy J. Keating before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 19, 2009. Keating said he does not regard the planned north Korean launching as a threat. “’It is a normal notification process, which they didn’t do in 2006, when they attempted a launch from the same facility,’ Keating said. Keating added that U.S. intelligence cannot yet say whether the launch will be of a communications satellite, as North Korea has asserted, or of a missile with intercontinental range. But he and two other commanders said they think it will be a satellite launch because of the public announcements from Pyongyang, including coordinates of the ocean area where the booster rocket is likely to fall.” (13)

Nuclear armed Israel carries out a massacre in Gaza, backed by a rabbinate echoing the Nazi’s rationale for territorial expansion, while Israeli soldiers wear t-shirts depicting Palestinians as vermin to be exterminated, and Israeli warplanes violate the sovereign airspace of Sudan. Soon after, the hostile Lee Myung Bak government of south Korea, more interested in picking fights with the north than seeking peaceful reunification, escalates the country’s annual war games with the United States, aimed at intimidating the north. These aggressive and provocative acts are minimized by the North American media – either barely acknowledged, sanitized or celebrated. In the meantime, north Korea’s planned satellite launching is depicted as a provocation meriting stepped up sanctions and escalated efforts to bring down the government in Pyongyang. It can be hardly doubted that the North American media are an apparatus of public persuasion in the service of US foreign policy. In its hands black becomes white, the oppressed become oppressor, serial aggressors become keepers of the peace, and self-defense becomes provocation.

This entry was posted on Mar 30, 2009 at 05:59:03 am and is filed under American Empire.
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This entry was posted on Mar 29, 2009 at 03:06:11 pm and is filed under American Empire, Economy.
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Forget the mainstream media's obsession with al-Qaeda, Osama "dead or alive" bin Laden, the Taliban - neo, light or classic - or that "war on terror", whatever name it goes by. These are diversions compared to the high-stakes, hardcore geopolitical game that follows what flows along the pipelines of the planet.

By Pepe Escobar

What happens on the immense battlefield for the control of Eurasia will provide the ultimate plot line in the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order, also known as the New Great Game.

Our good ol' friend the nonsensical "global war on terror", which the Pentagon has slyly rebranded "the Long War", sports a far more important, if half-hidden, twin - a global energy war. I like to think of it as the Liquid War, because its bloodstream is the pipelines that crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet. Put another way, if its crucial embattled frontier these days is the Caspian Basin, the whole of Eurasia is its chessboard. Think of it, geographically, as Pipelineistan.

All geopolitical junkies need a fix. Since the second half of the
1990s, I've been hooked on pipelines. I've crossed the Caspian in an Azeri cargo ship just to follow the $4 billion Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, better known in this chess game by its acronym, BTC, through the Caucasus. (Oh, by the way, the map of Pipelineistan is chicken-scratched with acronyms, so get used to them!)

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I've also trekked various of the overlapping modern Silk Roads
, or perhaps Silk Pipelines, of possible future energy flows from Shanghai to Istanbul, annotating my own do-it-yourself routes for LNG (liquefied natural gas). I used to avidly follow the adventures of that once-but-not-future Sun-King of Central Asia, the now deceased Turkmenbashi or "leader of the Turkmen", Saparmurat Niyazov, head of the immensely gas-rich Republic of Turkmenistan, as if he were a Conradian hero.

In Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan (before it was moved to Astana, in the middle of the middle of nowhere) the locals were puzzled when I expressed an overwhelming urge to drive to that country's oil boomtown Aktau. ("Why? There's nothing there.") Entering the Space Odyssey-style map room at the Russian energy giant Gazprom's headquarters in Moscow - which digitally details every single pipeline in Eurasia - or the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)'s corporate HQ in Tehran, with its neat rows of female experts in full chador, was my equivalent of entering Aladdin's cave. And never reading the words "Afghanistan" and "oil" in the same sentence is still a source of endless amusement for me.

Last year, oil cost a king's ransom. This year, it's relatively cheap. But don't be fooled. Price isn't the point here. Like it or not, energy is still what everyone who's anyone wants to get their hands on. So consider this dispatch just the first installment in a long, long tale of some of the moves that have been, or will be, made in the maddeningly complex New Great Game, which goes on unceasingly, no matter what else muscles into the headlines this week.

Forget the mainstream media's obsession with al-Qaeda, Osama "dead or alive" bin Laden, the Taliban - neo, light or classic - or that "war on terror", whatever name it goes by. These are diversions compared to the high-stakes, hardcore geopolitical game that follows what flows along the pipelines of the planet.

Who said Pipelineistan couldn't be fun?

Calling Dr Zbig In his 1997 magnum opus The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski - realpolitik practitioner extraordinaire and former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, the president who launched the US on its modern energy wars - laid out in some detail just how to hang on to American "global primacy". Later, his master plan would be duly copied by that lethal bunch of Dr No's congregated at Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century (PNAC, in case you'd forgotten the acronym since its website and its followers went down).

For Dr Zbig, who, like me, gets his fix from Eurasia - from, that is, thinking big - it all boils down to fostering the emergence of just the right set of "strategically compatible partners" for Washington in places where energy flows are strongest. This, as he so politely put it back then, should be done to shape "a more cooperative trans-Eurasian security system".

By now, Dr Zbig - among whose fans is evidently President Barack Obama - must have noticed that the Eurasian train which was to deliver the energy goods has been slightly derailed. The Asian part of Eurasia, it seems, begs to differ.

Global financial crisis or not, oil and natural gas are the long-term keys to an inexorable transfer of economic power from the West to Asia. Those who control Pipelineistan - and despite all the dreaming and planning that's gone on there, it's unlikely to be Washington - will have the upper hand in whatever is to come, and there's not a terrorist in the world, or even a "long war", that can change that.

Energy expert Michael Klare has been instrumental in identifying the key vectors in the wild, ongoing global scramble for power over Pipelineistan. These range from the increasing scarcity (and difficulty of reaching) primary energy supplies to "the painfully slow development of energy alternatives". Though you may not have noticed, the first skirmishes in Pipelineistan's Liquid War are already on, and even in the worst of economic times, the risk mounts constantly, given the relentless competition between the West and Asia, be it in the Middle East, in the Caspian theater, or in African oil-rich states like Angola, Nigeria and Sudan.

In these early skirmishes of the 21st century, China reacted swiftly indeed. Even before the attacks of September 11, 2001, its leaders were formulating a response to what they saw as the reptilian encroachment of the West on the oil and gas lands of Central Asia, especially in the Caspian Sea region. To be specific, in June 2001, its leaders joined with Russia's to form the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It's known as the SCO and that's an acronym you should memorize. It's going to be around for a while.

Back then, the SCO's junior members were, tellingly enough, the Stans, the energy-rich former SSRs of the Soviet Union - Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan - which the Bill Clinton administration and then the new George W Bush administration, run by those former energy men, had been eyeing covetously. The organization was to be a multi-layered economic and military regional cooperation society that, as both the Chinese and the Russians saw it, would function as a kind of security blanket around the upper rim of Afghanistan.

Iran is, of course, a crucial energy node of West Asia and that country's leaders, too, would prove no slouches when it came to the New Great Game. It needs at least $200 billion in foreign investment to truly modernize its fabulous oil and gas reserves - and thus sell much more to the West than US-imposed sanctions now allow.

No wonder Iran soon became a target in Washington. No wonder an air assault on that country remains the ultimate wet dream of assorted Likudniks as well as former vice president Dick ("Angler") Cheney and his neo-conservative chamberlains and comrades-in-arms. As seen by the elite from Tehran and Delhi to Beijing and Moscow, such a US attack, now likely off the radar screen until at least 2012, would be a war not only against Russia and China, but against the whole project of Asian integration that the SCO is coming to represent.

Global BRIC-a-brac
Meanwhile, as the Obama administration tries to sort out its Iranian, Afghan, and Central Asian policies, Beijing continues to dream of a secure, fast-flowing, energy version of the old Silk Road, extending from the Caspian Basin (the energy-rich Stans plus Iran and Russia) to Xinjiang province, its Far West.

The SCO has expanded its aims and scope since 2001. Today, Iran, India, and Pakistan enjoy "observer status" in an organization that increasingly aims to control and protect not just regional energy supplies, but Pipelineistan in every direction. This is, of course, the role the Washington ruling elite would like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to play across Eurasia. Given that Russia and China expect the SCO to play a similar role across Asia, clashes of various sorts are inevitable.

Ask any relevant expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and he will tell you that the SCO should be understood as a historically unique alliance of five non-Western civilizations - Russian, Chinese, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist - and, because of that, capable of evolving into the basis for a collective security system in Eurasia. That's a thought sure to discomfort classic inside-the-Beltway global strategists like Dr Zbig and president George H W Bush's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft.

According to the view from Beijing, the rising world order of the 21st century will be significantly determined by a quadrangle of BRIC countries - for those of you by now collecting New Great Game acronyms, that stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China - plus the future Islamic triangle of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Add in a unified South America, no longer in thrall to Washington, and you have a global SCO-plus. On the drawing boards, at least, it's a high-octane dream.

The key to any of this is a continuing Sino-Russian entente cordiale.

Already in 1999, watching NATO and the United States aggressively expand into the distant Balkans, Beijing identified this new game for what it was: a developing energy war. And at stake were the oil and natural gas reserves of what Americans would soon be calling the "arc of instability," a vast span of lands extending from North Africa to the Chinese border.

No less important would be the routes pipelines would take in bringing the energy buried in those lands to the West. Where they would be built, the countries they would cross, would determine much in the world to come. And this was where the empire of US military bases (think, for instance, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo) met Pipelineistan (represented, way back in 1999, by the AMBO pipeline).

AMBO, short for Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation, an entity registered in the US, is building a $1.1 billion pipeline, aka "the Trans-Balkan", slated to be finished by 2011. It will bring Caspian oil to the West without taking it through either Russia or Iran. As a pipeline, AMBO fit well into a geopolitical strategy of creating a US-controlled energy-security grid that was first developed by president Bill Clinton's energy secretary Bill

Richardson and later by Cheney.

Behind the idea of that "grid" lay a go-for-broke militarization of an energy corridor that would stretch from the Caspian Sea in Central Asia through a series of now independent former SSRs of the Soviet Union to Turkey, and from there into the Balkans (from thence onto Europe). It was meant to sabotage the larger energy plans of both Russia and Iran. AMBO itself would bring oil from the Caspian basin to a terminal in the former SSR of Georgia in the Caucasus, and then transport it by tanker through the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port of Burgas, where another pipeline would connect to Macedonia and then to the Albanian port of Vlora.

As for Camp Bondsteel, it was the "enduring" military base that Washington gained from the wars for the remains of Yugoslavia. It would be the largest overseas base the US had built since the Vietnam War. Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root would, with the Army Corps of Engineers, put it up on 400 hectares of farmland near the Macedonian border in southern Kosovo.

Think of it as a user-friendly, five-star version of Guantanamo with perks for those stationed there that included Thai massage and loads of junk food. Bondsteel is the Balkan equivalent of a giant immobile aircraft carrier, capable of exercising surveillance not only over the Balkans but also over Turkey and the Black Sea region (considered in the neo-con-speak of the Bush years "the new interface" between the "Euro-Atlantic community" and the "Greater Middle East").

How could Russia, China, and Iran not interpret the war in Kosovo, then the invasion of Afghanistan (where Washington had previously tried to pair with the Taliban and encourage the building of another of those avoid-Iran, avoid-Russia pipelines), followed by the invasion of Iraq (that country of vast oil reserves), and finally the recent clash in Georgia (that crucial energy transportation junction) as straightforward wars for Pipelineistan?

Though seldom imagined this way in our mainstream media, the Russian and Chinese leaderships saw a stark "continuity" of policy stretching from Bill Clinton's humanitarian imperialism to Bush's "global war on terror". Blowback, as then Russian President Vladimir Putin himself warned publicly, was inevitable - but that's another magic-carpet story, another cave to enter another time.

Rainy night in Georgia
If you want to understand Washington's version of Pipelineistan, you have to start with Mafia-ridden Georgia. Though its army was crushed in its recent war with Russia, Georgia remains crucial to Washington's energy policy in what, by now, has become a genuine arc of instability - in part because of a continuing obsession with cutting Iran out of the energy flow.

It was around the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, as I pointed out in my book Globalistan in 2007, that American policy congealed. Zbig Brzezinski himself flew into Baku in 1995 as an "energy consultant", less than four years after Azerbaijan became independent, and sold the idea to the Azerbaijani elite. The BTC was to run from the Sangachal Terminal, half-an-hour south of Baku, across neighboring Georgia to the Marine Terminal in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.

Now operational, that 1,767-kilometer-long, 44-meter-wide steel serpent straddles no less than six war zones, ongoing or potential: Nagorno-Karabakh (an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan), Chechnya and Dagestan (both embattled regions of Russia), South Ossetia and Abkhazia (on which the 2008 Russia-Georgia war pivoted), and Turkish Kurdistan.

From a purely economic point of view, the BTC made no sense. A "BTK" pipeline, running from Baku through Tehran to Iran's Kharg Island, could have been built for, relatively speaking, next to nothing - and it would have had the added advantage of bypassing both mafia-corroded Georgia and wobbly Kurdish-populated Eastern Anatolia. That would have been the really cheap way to bring Caspian oil and gas to Europe.

The New Great Game ensured that that was not to be, and much followed from that decision. Even though Moscow never planned to occupy Georgia long-term in its 2008 war, or take over the BTC pipeline that now runs through its territory, Alfa Bank oil and gas analyst Konstantin Batunin pointed out the obvious: by briefly cutting off the BTC oil flow, Russian troops made it all too clear to global investors that Georgia wasn't a reliable energy transit country. In other words, the Russians made a mockery of Zbig's world.

For its part, Azerbaijan was, until recently, the real success story in the US version of Pipelineistan. Advised by Zbig, Bill Clinton literally "stole" Baku from Russia's "near abroad" by promoting the BTC and the wealth that would flow from it. Now, however, with the message of the Russia-Georgia War sinking in, Baku is again allowing itself to be seduced by Russia. To top it off, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev can't stand Georgia's brash President Mikhail Saakashvili. That's hardly surprising. After all, Saakashvili's rash military moves caused Azerbaijan to lose at least $500 million when the BTC was shut down during the war.

Russia's energy seduction blitzkrieg is focused like a laser on Central Asia as well. (We'll talk about it more in the next Pipelineistan installment.) It revolves around offering to buy Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkmen gas at European prices instead of previous, much lower Russian prices. The Russians, in fact, have offered the same deal to the Azeris: so now, Baku is negotiating a deal involving more capacity for the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, which makes its way to the Russian borders of the Black Sea, while considering pumping less oil for the BTC.

Obama needs to understand the dire implications of this. Less Azeri oil on the BTC - its full capacity is 1 million barrels a day, mostly shipped to Europe - means the pipeline may go broke, which is exactly what Russia wants.

In Central Asia, some of the biggest stakes revolve around the monster Kashagan oil field in "snow leopard" Kazakhstan, the absolute jewel in the Caspian crown with reserves of as many as 9 billion barrels. As usual in Pipelineistan, it all comes down to which routes will deliver Kashagan's oil to the world after production starts in 2013. This spells, of course, Liquid War. Wily Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev would like to use the Russian-controlled Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) to pump Kashagan crude to the Black Sea.

In this case, the Kazakhs hold all the cards. How oil will flow from Kashagan will decide whether the BTC - once hyped by Washington as the ultimate Western escape route from dependence on Persian Gulf oil - lives or dies.

Welcome, then, to Pipelineistan! Whether we like it or not, in good times and bad, it's a reasonable bet that we're all going to be Pipeline tourists. So, go with the flow. Learn the crucial acronyms, keep an eye out for what happens to all those US bases across the oil heartlands of the planet, watch where the pipelines are being built, and do your best to keep tabs on the next set of monster Chinese energy deals and fabulous coups by Russia's Gazprom.

And, while you're at it, consider this just the first postcard sent off from our tour of Pipelineistan. We'll be back (to slightly adapt a quote from Terminator). Think of this as a door opening onto a future in which what flows where and to whom may turn out to be the most important question on the planet.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times Online and an analyst for the Real News. This article draws from his new book, Obama does Globalistan. He is also the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. Pepe may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

The 'Put People First' march in London was part of a global campaign to challenge the G20 [GALLO/GETTY]

"The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work and have brought the world's economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy." -- Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trade Union Congress.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched through European cities to demand action on poverty, job losses and climate change ahead of a meeting of the world's 20 leading economies.

In London, the British capital, about 35,000 protesters gathered on Saturday as part of an alliance of more than 100 trade unions, aid agencies, religious groups and environmental organisations to call on world leaders meeting next week to commit to reforms.

"Never before has such a wide coalition come together with such a clear message for world leaders," said Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trade Union Congress.

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"The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work and have brought the world's economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy."

'Death of capitalism'

The demonstration marked the start of nearly a week of protests in London and other European cities before the Group of 20 summit in London on April 2.

About 15,000 people gathered in Berlin, the German capital, sporting headbands reading "Pay for it yourselves" and some carried a black coffin topped with red roses symbolising what they said was the death of capitalism.

A demonstration also was held in Frankfurt, Germany's banking capital under the slogan: "We won't pay for your crisis."

In Vienna, the capital of Austria, around 6,500 people gathered in the city centre with paper piggy banks, balloons or signs that read "Capitalism can't be reformed".

A group of around 200 protesters in Paris, the French capital, dumped a pile of sand outside the city's stock market to mock the use of island tax havens.

'Deepening recession'

Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri said the London demonstrators had united under the slogan "Put People First."

The protesters' main message was a call to world leaders to act on the deepening global recession, Moshiri said.

"There are a lot of ordinary people out here concerned about their jobs, about their homes, about their livelihoods," she said.

The protest remained relatively peaceful. British authorities have said they are spending $10m to ensure security at the summit.

World leaders, including Barack Obama, the US president, are expected to discuss the global economic crisis, among other topics at the summit.

The US is emphasising more public spending to stimulate the economy while several European countries are calling for new regulations to be implemented.Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

This entry was posted on Mar 28, 2009 at 01:56:08 pm and is filed under General News, World, Economy.
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In light of the rampant extremism and militarism around the world, nothing proves more dangerous than the manipulation of truth for political ends. This tactic facilitates the demonization process that blurs ideologies and beliefs in both the West and the Islamic world. And, no concept is more abused by both sides than the concept of Jihad.

To Muslim extremists and their cronies, Jihad is a narrowly defined license to fight their perceived enemies (including Muslims, as is the case in Somalia) even if that leads to atrocities against civilians. And to Western extremists and their cronies, Jihad is a religiously sanctioned, perpetual holy war led by militant non-state actors sworn to destroy Western values and civilization.

However, Jihad is a complex concept deeply embedded in Islam. It is a principle that all Muslims who adhere to the teachings of their religion embrace. And, contrary to prevalent post-9/11 perception, the concept does not connote senseless violence against innocents or suicide bombings.

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While the concept carries different relevance for different people, the Arabic word means to strive or struggle toward achieving a higher aim, which includes the "struggle in the way of God." It can also mean to defend oneself, or to strive against injustices. Finally, Jihad means the attainment of the ultimate goal of Tazkiyatul Nafs, or purification of the soul - morally, spiritually and ethically. Indeed, it is this latter aspect, the Jihad with oneself as one resists temptations and strives against his/her evil tendencies, which Prophet Muhammad referred to as "the Greater Jihad." The purification of the soul, or simply self-purification, is an around-the-clock process of deep introspection.

Despite great achievements in the fields of science and technology; in the compilation and standardization of knowledge; and, yes, in the art of its dissemination, humanity still remains in an embryonic, if not an imbecilic, stage when it comes to morality and ethics.

Human beings, though endowed by their Creator with a profound faculty that renders them superior to other known creatures, they are given by that same Creator the capacity or the free will to bring themselves to "the lowest of the low." This latter capacity inspires wickedness, extremism in all its forms (social, economic, political and religious) and the ever-increasing appetite to exploit others, to kill and destroy.

The human being remains a profound enigma and a paradox of clashing potentialities. As we surpass animals in the realm of intellect and wisdom, we surpass them in savagery as well. There is no animal group that plays "war games" and makes deliberate plans to oppress or annihilate others while they are belly-full - all in the name of ideology, religion, economic exploitation, strategic opportunism or simply racism.

So when the Prophet was referring to a particular aspect of Jihad in such high regard, he was not merely offering an opinion. Rather, he was pointing to what the majority of Muslim scholars consider the peak of piety - to a process which, according to the Qur'an, leads to the ultimate salvation.

As He does throughout the Qur'an for emphasis, in the Chapter Al-shams (The Sun), God swears multiple times; in fact, more than any other time: "(I swear) By the sun and its glorious splendor; and by the moon as it follows it; and by the day as it reveals it; and by the night as it conceals it; and by the sky and what built it; and by the earth and what smoothes it out all over; and by the soul and who gave it balance and order, and inspired it with the capacity to turn to disobedience and the capacity to fear God; Verily, whosoever purifies the soul attains the highest of success, and verily whosoever corrupts it descends into utter failure!" And the engine that drives this process is known as Taqwah (sincere fear and devotion to God). It is through Taqwah that one attains the profound God-consciousness which cultivates one's capacity to self-police against all evil.

So how could such a noble concept get so distorted? How come the robe-wearing extremists of the East and the suit-wearing extremists of the West are the ones who hold monopoly on the definition of Jihad?

In the past eight years of global political discontent, one persistent warning has been systematically ignored: When militant politics takes over the stage, reason makes a run for the exit. This was a period when people were generally herded toward one side of the argument or the other. Two nihilistic manifestos dominated the political discourse and brought the world closer to a self-fulfilling prophecy known as the "clash of civilizations": the global war on terror and the global Jihad.

The former was based on an erroneous premise that "political Islam" in all its manifestations is anti-democratic and anti-Western, and, as such, should never be afforded a space in the marketplace of ideas. Proponents of this view insisted that such movements were dangerous fronts for Muslim militants with sinister "Jihadist ambition," intent on destroying the West because of its freedom and economic success. Therefore, they were to be met at their incubation place: with "preemptive" force if they were based in foreign lands and by draconian policies if they were stationed in the West.

The proponents of this view work hard to conceal two particular facts that dismantle their claim by default: the success of the Turkish political system led by a democratically elected Islamist government, and the millions of Muslims who live peacefully in the US and various parts of Europe in spite of ever-growing Islamophobia.

The concept of "global Jihad," on the other hand, was based on an opposite yet equally erroneous premise - that the West is collectively bent on destroying Islam by occupying the Islamic world: exploiting its natural resources, oppressing its peoples and Westernizing Islamic values. And as such Jihad against them is not only right, but the moral thing to do.

The proponents of this manifesto, such as Al Qaeda, selectively use the confrontational rhetoric often used by their counterparts in the West - secularist and evangelical Zionists - to lend credence to their claim. And they, too, work hard to conceal two particular realities: that Muslims are afforded more rights in the West than in most of the so-called Islamic countries when it comes to practicing their religion freely and establishing Islamic institutions; and that the Obama administration is adamant about its desire to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Back to the abused concept: Until Jihad is openly discussed in both the Islamic and the Western worlds, and its true nature is unveiled, abuse of the concept for self-serving political ends will continue - and so will its unjust violent expression.

Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio. His articles and analyses have appeared in the pages of various media groups.

This entry was posted on Mar 28, 2009 at 09:28:22 am and is filed under Religion.
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Palestinian factions know that when national dialogue sessions reconvene, they have no choice but to reach an agreement, reports Saleh Al-Naami
The shops owned by Mohamed Abu Kirsh and Sobhi Khalil in Al-Ramal area of Gaza City are only 50 metres away from the mosque they pray in. Despite this, it takes them 20 minutes to make it back to their shops following the noonday prayer due to their debating the likelihood of success for Palestinian national dialogue. Both optimistic Abu Kirsh and pessimistic Khalil fervently hope that the next dialogue session will close with a final agreement that will put an end to the state of division in Palestinian politics.

"If the faction leaders don't succeed in reaching an agreement, they'd better not come back to us, for in my view that would clearly show a lack of responsibility," Abu Kirsh told Al-Ahram Weekly. Khalil holds that all of the points of difference preventing an agreement are marginal in comparison to the threats facing the Palestinian national cause.

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The likelihood of the dialogue's success is currently the focal point of burning debate on the Palestinian street, where people are keeping their fingers crossed for an agreement. Although a date has not been set for resuming national dialogue sessions, they are expected to reconvene soon.

An informed Palestinian source told the Weekly that the impressions of Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman during his meetings with American officials were extremely important and would indicate whether the American administration would recognise the new national accord government or not. This source suggested that should Egypt not obtain guarantees that the world would recognise the new government, then Cairo's attempts would be reduced to mere leaps into the air. As the faction leaders prepare to return to Cairo again, they realise that this will be their last chance.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) politburo member Ramzi Ribah says that the faction representatives are expected to reach agreements on three primary points of difference they had been unable to concur on during the dialogue sessions that ended late last week. In a statement to the Weekly, Ribah said that the first point of difference concerned the powers of the national body that would run Palestinian affairs until elections are held for the Palestinian National Council (PNC). Ribah said that Hamas insists that this temporary entity has sole responsibility for making important national decisions related to Palestinian affairs. In contrast, Fatah and some other factions hold that this body's powers should not conflict with those of the agencies of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Ribah says that the second point of difference is related to the electoral system, whereby Hamas wants to continue with the current system that combines proportional and district systems, while Fatah and the other factions want to use only the proportional system. The third point of difference, Ribah says, concerns the programme of the national accord government. Hamas holds that it must be based upon the programme of the national unity government that was formed following the Mecca Agreement, whereby it includes reference to the government "respecting" the agreements signed between the PLO and Israel. Fatah, however, insists that the programme text makes reference to the new government's "commitment" to the signed agreements.

Ribah revealed to the Weekly that the DFLP has proposed a formulation for overcoming differences on the political programme by including a text on the government's commitment to the resolutions of the international community and international law. All the parties could live with such a formulation, the reasoning goes, and it could form an alternative to direct reference to the conditions of the International Quartet, Ribah explained. The Palestinian factions do agree on the importance of the national accord government overseeing reconstruction, organising legislative and presidential elections, and unifying Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Ribah says. And, he adds, the challenges facing the Palestinian people -- including reconstruction following the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and the rise of the extreme right to power in Israel -- are forcing the parties to take advantage of this opportunity and to reach an agreement as quickly as possible, for time is not on the side of the Palestinian people.

Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Independent Palestine list in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), disapproves of the differences between Fatah and Hamas on the government's programme. He says that lifting the siege on the Palestinian people is not solely dependent upon the political programme of the national accord government that will be formed when national dialogue comes to a successful close. In a statement to the Weekly, Barghouti said that reaching an agreement on the government's programme could not form an alternative to Palestinians resisting the siege. He warns that no formulation the Palestinians might agree upon for the new government's programme would be able to convince the parties imposing the siege to lift it. "We must come out to the world unified, and cry in a loud and clear voice, 'You cannot go on classifying us as moderates and extremists, and you can't go on pardoning Israel from the burdens it must shoulder as an occupying power!'" he said.

Barghouti believes that the programme of the national unity government that was formed following the Mecca Agreement in February 2007 would be suitable for the new government with a few minor adjustments. He says that the unity government's programme clearly addresses recognition of the resolutions of the international community, international law, and international humanitarian law, and stresses that these aspects of the programme must be brought to the fore. Barghouti says that although the outstanding points of difference at the last national dialogue session held in Cairo involved primary issues that the dialogue must resolve in order to come to a successful close, the distance between the positions of Fatah and Hamas is not so great and that the gap can be bridged if there is a sincere will to do so. He adds that the atmosphere of the recent round of dialogue sessions was positive, and he's hopeful that the next session, expected to be convened at the end of this week, will succeed in reaching a final agreement on all points of difference. Yet Barghouti also warns against giving in to Israeli and American pressure, and says that Tel Aviv considers a successful outcome to the dialogue and an end to the Palestinian domestic rift counter to Israel's interests. Israel wants the division between Palestinians to remain in place, he says.

Yet the likelihood of the dialogue succeeding is not all that concerns Palestinians these days. They still hope that an agreement can be reached on a prisoner swap deal with Israel that would put an end to the suffering of hundreds of Palestinians detained in occupation prisons. Although Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that he is not prepared to agree to Hamas's demand that 450 prisoners with long sentences be released in return for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, intense efforts are currently being made to close this file within two weeks -- meaning before Olmert's term ends. Palestinian and Israeli sources have confirmed that French President Nicolas Sarkozy intends to propose an initiative to solve the differences between Hamas and Israel on the deal. Hamas political figure Osama Al-Mazini has welcomed France's intervention and confirmed that the door to resuming negotiations remains open. "Negotiations on reaching an agreement have not failed, but rather the first stage of these negotiations failed," he has said. "Now the ball is in the Israeli court. The positions of Hamas are clear and its goals have been consistent, for Hamas has not changed its demands over the last 1,000 days."

Al-Waid, a Palestinian human rights organisation concerned with Palestinian detainees in occupation prisons, has confirmed that the Israeli prison authority has placed a number of mentally unbalanced Israelis in solitary confinement with Hamas detainees. In a recent statement, Al-Waid wrote that this measure came in response to failure to reach an agreement on a prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. It further noted that this was only one of dozens of punitive measures the Israeli government decided to take against Hamas detainees, and considers this an attempt to "break the prisoners and consequently influence the prisoner exchange agreement". Yet Al-Waid says that there is no real concern for the morale of the prisoners as they have "shown extreme patience and perseverance". It warns, however, that clashes within the prisons could lead to the killing of detainees. The organisation calls on the media to consistently follow these crimes and to reveal Israeli measures that violate international conventions that guarantee prisoner rights.

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Abbas celebrates Jerusalem as Arab cultural capital while Palestinian youths celebrate in Bethlehem; above (clockwise from left): the Orthodox church and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the arrest of participants in celebrations in Arab East Jerusalem including Arabic Israeli Islamic Movement head Raed Salah, a traditional dance during celebrations in Ramallah (photos: AFP)

Khaled Amayreh plots the ever more aggressive tactics Israel is adopting in its efforts to Judaise occupied East Jerusalem
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In its increasingly rabid efforts to consolidate control of traditionally Arab-East Jerusalem, Israel this week moved to suppress Palestinian cultural activities associated with the city being declared the capital of Arab culture for 2009.

On 19 March heavily armed paramilitary police violently dispersed a meeting at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, confiscating posters, leaflets, placards and computers.

Israeli police also raided schools, social clubs and community centres to foil activities celebrating Arab culture in the occupied city which Israel considers its "united and undivided capital".

[More:]

Several organisers, including East Jerusalem lawmaker Hatem Abdel-Qader, were arrested on charges of disturbing peace.

Israeli security forces cordoned off East Jerusalem by deploying soldiers at all entrances to the city. They turned back visitors, including several delegations from Arabian Gulf states, including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Frustrated by the draconian Israeli measures the Palestinian Authority, the main organiser of the festivities, decided to transfer the main event to Bethlehem, a few kilometres south of Jerusalem. Hundreds of PA officials, foreign dignitaries, religious leaders and diplomats arrived on 21 March to listen to a speech by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas reasserted his commitment to establishing a viable Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, on all Palestinian land Israel occupied in 1967.

"We will continue to reject the Israeli policy of Judaising Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem]. And we will not hold peace talks with any Israeli government that rejects the two-state solution," said Abbas, alluding to Israeli designate-Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

The Palestinian leader, who recited a few verses of the Quran pertaining to the status of Jerusalem in Islam, pointed out that Jerusalem was the key to peace in the region and the world, saying that peace will not prevail unless and until the Israeli occupation ends completely.

Addressing the Arab-Muslim world, Abbas said: "I urge our Arab and Muslim brothers to come to the rescue of Jerusalem, protect Jerusalem from the act of rape to which the city is being subjected... Jerusalem is being Judaised by force, its Arab identity is being obliterated, its history is being falsified, its people are being oppressed and tormented. Its homes are being demolished. Jerusalem is the beginning and the end, it is the ultimate address of peace. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine."

Addressing Israel, Abbas said: "Peace can't be made through the building and expansion of settlements, brute force and military insolence. What happened in Gaza recently reflects the Israeli mindset, and with such a mindset, it is clear there can be no peace."

Abbas's desperate but defiant words epitomised the situation across the occupied Palestinian territories but especially in Jerusalem, where Israel is planning to destroy hundreds of Palestinian homes.

The planned destruction of the Silwan neighbourhood in the heart of the city has been described by PA officials as "demographic decapitation".

"They are indulging in ethnic cleansing in broad daylight. They are chasing Palestinians out of their homes. They are trying to decapitate Arab existence in East Jerusalem, step by step, home by home, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, while they continue to lie about their desire for peace," said Rafiq Al-Husseini, a senior aide to Abbas.

Asked by Al-Ahram Weekly what the PA was going to do to prevent Israel from carrying out the wholesale destruction of the Silwan neighbourhood [the goal is to build a park and recreational facilities for Jewish settlers in the surrounding areas], Al-Husseini said the PA would try to mobilise the international community to stop Israeli crimes.

During her recent visit to the occupied territories US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the planned demolitions as "unhelpful" and "incompatible with Israeli commitments under the roadmap".

Israeli officials were unimpressed by Clinton's warnings. Jerusalem's Jewish mayor, Nir Barkat, described her words as "a lot of air", claiming she had been misled by the Palestinians.

Barkat, an extreme right-winger, vowed to destroy Arab homes en masse, saying that "what we do in our capital is none of America's business".

Israeli efforts to obliterate the Arab-Islamic-Christian identity of Jerusalem began immediately after 1967. Four days after seizing the city Israeli army bulldozers razed the Maghariba and Sharaf neighbourhoods. The Palestinian inhabitants of the two neighbourhoods were expelled at gunpoint. Two mosques, two religious schools or Zawiyas and 135 houses were destroyed.

Several months later Israel seized the Harat Al-Maghariba for "public use" and built a large plaza in front of the Buraq -- the Wailing or Western -- Wall. The heart of Al-Maghariba and the adjacent, smaller Harat Al-Sharaf were both Islamic Waqf (religious endowment) properties dating back to the time of Salaheddin Al-Ayoubi (Saladin).

According to Palestinian sources Israel has demolished as many as 700 homes in the old town alone, forcing many inhabitants to seek shelter outside the boundaries of the city, e.g. in the West Bank.

Since 1967 Israel has confiscated 34 per cent of East Jerusalem for "public benefit" and designated 44 per cent of the occupied Arab town as "green space". Nine per cent of the city was confiscated for the purpose of building settlements, leaving only 13 per cent of the original, built up Arab area, for the Palestinians.

In addition Israel has adopted a number of aggressive measures aimed at forcing the town's Arab inhabitants to leave. These include imposing excessive taxes on real estate, including homes, withholding vital municipal services from Jerusalem's Arabs in order to force them to relocate and denying residency rights to as many as 20,000 Arabs living in the city.

The Israeli authorities have continued to deny Arabs building licences, exacerbating a housing crisis in the Old Town and surrounding Arab neighbourhoods.

The systematic destruction by Israeli municipal authority of "illegally-built" homes pushed thousands of Jerusalemites to the brink of despair.

Adnan Al-Husseini, the nominal Palestinian governor of Jerusalem, described Israeli measures in Jerusalem as a "full fledged demographic war".

"The Israeli goal is very clear. It is to force as many Palestinians as possible to leave the city and sell their property to Jewish interests."

Al-Husseini said Israel was following a variety of tactics to achieve its strategy, including psychological and economic pressure, heavy taxation, physical coercion and harassment and financial incentives to force Arabs to sell their properties. Jerusalemite Arabs were clinging to their city, he said, despite Israeli efforts to curtail Arab demographic growth.

The Palestinian population of Jerusalem has grown extensively since the beginning of the occupation in 1967. Today, the total population of Jerusalem (East and West) is estimated at 720,000, including 475,000 Jews (66 per cent) and 245,000 Arabs (34 per cent).

As many as 260,000 of the Jewish population of the city (54.7 per cent) are living in 34 colonies established in and around East Jerusalem since 1967.

Maali Adomim, Pisgat Zeev, Har Homa and Gush Itzion are among the largest of these settlements.

Israeli demographic experts predict the Palestinian population will make up 40 per cent of the town's total population by the 2020. It is to forestall this possibility that Israel has been making frantic efforts to confiscate more Arab land in order to build Jewish settler units.

According Israeli sources tenders for building more than 25,000 settler units have been issued since the Annapolis conference in 2007.

Earlier this month the Israeli group Peace Now revealed that the Israeli government was planning to build more than 73,000 units in the occupied West Bank, most of them in existing settlements surrounding East Jerusalem.

The group, which monitors settlement expansion in the West Bank, said the new plans would lead to the doubling of the Israeli settler population and scuttle any prospects for the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.

Among the most dangerous and explosive aspects of Israel's efforts to Judaise East Jerusalem is the ongoing excavation and digging beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.

According to Waqf officials, digging beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque is seriously undermining the foundations of Islamic shrine and the nearby Dome of the Rock.

Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, head of the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem, warned that it was only a matter of time before a "major disaster" occurred as a result of Israeli diggings in the vicinity of the Haram Al-Sharif (Al-Aqsa Mosque) esplanade. He accused the Israeli authorities of constructing subterranean tunnels beneath Islamic holy places without any consideration for the safety of Islamic shrines. "I can say without the slightest exaggeration that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is facing the danger of collapse as a result of these excavations."

Islamic Palestinian leader Raed Salah was even more dramatic in voicing his concerns. "The Al-Aqsa Mosque is facing urgent danger. A medium earthquake could cause the collapse of the mosque."

Salah was arrested by Israeli police on Monday, 23 March, charged with "disturbing the peace" and "inciting against Israel".

In recent years the Israeli security authorities have allowed extremist Jews to enter the Haram esplanade and perform Jewish prayers and other rituals.

In 1967 the Israeli army chief rabbi, General Shlomo Goren, tried to convince a commander of the conquering forces, Uzi Narkis, to blow up the mosque "once and for all".

The story was told by Narkis shortly before his death in 1997 and quoted by Avi Shlaim, an Israeli historian, in The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.

"There was an atmosphere of spiritual elation. Paratroopers were milling around in a daze. Narkis was standing for a moment on his own, deep in thought, when Goren went up to him and said 'Uzi, this is the time to put a hundred kilograms of explosives in the Mosque of Omar and that's it, we'll get rid of it once and for all.' Narkis said 'Rabbi, stop it." Goren then said to him, 'Uzi, you'll enter the history books by virtue of this deed.' Narkis replied, 'I have already recorded my name in the pages of the history of Jerusalem.' Goren walked away without saying another word."

Two weeks later the Israeli occupation army seized the key to one of the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque (the Moroccan Gate).

Numerous efforts by Jewish extremists to destroy the Islamic shrine have been reported over the years.

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Amu Goodman, the host of Democracy Now@ will bring her Standing Up to the Madness book tour to Middletown, Conn., in support of WESU 88.1 FM, Weslayen University's alternative radio station created in 1939. WESU is online at www.wesufm.org

The event will take place at Weslayan's Memorial Chapel, 221 High Street, Middletown, Conn. on Saturday, April 4 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Tickets are $4 for students, and $10 for the general public.
Tickets are be purchased at the Wesleyan Box Office online at www.wesleyan.edu/boxoffice or by calling 860-685-3355.

High donors who contribute $100 will meet Amy Goodman at a pre-show reception from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., receive a copy of the book, and enjoy reserved searing for the main event. To arrange a this special reservation, please call 860-685-7707

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Barack Obama has unveiled his administration's new strategy in Afghanistan, including the deployment of an additional 4,000 US troops to train Afghan forces, following a review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The new strategy includes proposals to counter a persistent Taliban and al-Qaeda campaign that spans the two countries' shared border, and additional development aid for both nations.

[More:]

Obama, who ordered the review of Afghanistan and Pakistan shortly after taking office in January, said a new strategy was essential because intelligence indicated al-Qaeda was "actively planning attacks" on the US from Pakistan.

"This is not simply an American problem, it's an international security problem of the highest order," he said on Friday.

Obama also hinted that the US may be willing to talk to some members of the Taliban, saying there would be "no peace without reconciliation among former enemies".

"In Iraq, we had success in reaching out to former adversaries to isolate and target al-Qaeda," he said.

"We must pursue a similar process in Afghanistan, while understanding that it is a very different country."

Development

Obama proposed an additional $1.5n in funding for infrastructure development in Pakistan, in addition to setting a goal of building an Afghan army of 134,000 and a police force of 82,000 by 2011.

There would also be a "substantial increase" in the number of civilians deployed on the ground in Afghanistan for development Obama said, and the US government would also seek "a new compact" with the Afghan government to halt corruption.

Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds in Washington says the new strategy combines military action with civilian development, a more comprehensive approach than simply putting "more boots on the ground".

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, had earlier described the latest deployment as "an integrated military-civilian strategy".

"We are convinced that the most critical underpinning of any success we hope to achieve, along with the people and government of Afghanistan, will be looking at where civilian trainers, aid workers, technical assistance of all kinds can be best utilised," she said during a visit to Mexico on Thursday.

US officials have said success in Afghanistan is impossible without tackling Taliban enclaves in Pakistan, whose government is beset by political turmoil.

Afghan accusation

The problems in Afghanistan were highlighted by its intelligence chief, who accused Pakistan's spy agency ISI of helping Taliban fighters carry out attacks in his country.

Amrullah Saleh told parliament on Wednesday that ISI provides support to the Taliban leadership council in the Pakistani city of Quetta headed by the group's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Saleh said the council sends fighters into Afghanistan to attack Afghan and international forces.

The New York Times also reported on Thursday that Pakistani spy operatives provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders, with evidence of the ties coming from electronic surveillance and trusted informants.

The report cited American, Pakistani and other security officials who spoke anonymously because they were discussing confidential intelligence information.

A senior officer in the Pakistani spy agency, however, denied the allegations.

Aid conference

The UN is also due to hold a conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, the Netherlands, next week, attended by delegates from more than 80 countries.

The gathering was suggested by the US and will also be attended by representatives from Iran, which has said it sees a regional solution to the conflict as vital to securing a lasting peace.

The additional US deployment comes against a backdrop of mounting violence in Afghanistan, with 11 Taliban fighters killed following a raid by international forces and Afghan soldiers in the south which turned into a gun battle on Thursday night, US forces said.

The raid had targeted an important Taliban fighter in a village in Helmand province, the US military said in a statement. The forces came under fire from fighters inside a compound as they advanced and returned fire.

Earlier in the day in the same province, nine Afghan policemen were killed by suspected Taliban fighters, interior ministry sources said.Al Jazeera

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Sudanese officials say hundreds were killed early this year when bombs hit smuggling convoys moving migrants headed for Israel and Europe as well as arms possibly meant for Gaza.

March 27, 2009

By Richard Boudreaux and Edmund Sanders

Reporting from Khartoum, Sudan, and Jerusalem — A Sudanese official said Thursday that hundreds of people were killed early this year when foreign warplanes bombed three convoys smuggling African migrants through Sudan along with weapons that apparently were destined for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hinted at his air force's possible involvement in the attacks. They came after Israel ended a 22-day assault on Gaza without fully achieving one of its aims: to choke off Hamas' weapons supply.

Israeli officials have said that the militant Islamic group is seeking more powerful weapons than the crude Kassam rockets and Grad missiles it fires at Israeli towns.

An Israeli role in the bombings, if confirmed, would underscore the Jewish state's determination to strike far beyond its borders to protect its security. It also would be seen as a warning to Hamas' most powerful patron, Iran, which Israel alleges is developing a nuclear weapon.

[More:]

The bombings brought a new layer of tragedy to Sudan, a country in the grip of an armed insurgency. The victims were migrants from Sudan, Ethiopia and other African countries seeking a better life in Israel or Europe, and young men and boys working as porters and drivers for the smugglers.

Fatih Mahmoud Awad, a spokesman for Sudan's Transport Ministry, said as many as 800 people died in the attacks in January and early February. He said each convoy had more than a dozen vehicles.

The Associated Press quoted a Sudanese Foreign Ministry official, Ali Youssef, as saying there were conflicting reports of the number of casualties.

Transport Minister Mubarak Mabrook Saleem discussed the attacks at a news conference this week in Khartoum.

The attacks were not reported in the country's newspapers, suggesting that the government was embarrassed to acknowledge that its sovereignty and air space could be violated so easily.

Saleem told the Associated Press that he believed the planes were American, but other officials said they were not identifiable.

The U.S. military Thursday denied having made any recent airstrikes on Sudan.

CBS News reported Wednesday that Israel carried out the bombing in January. The network said Israel had learned of plans to move weapons north through Sudan to Egypt, then across the Sinai and through tunnels into Gaza.

Salah Bardawil, a senior Hamas official, denied that the vehicles hit were bearing weapons for Gaza.

Thirty-nine people in the 17-truck convoy were killed, CBS said. Awad, the Transport Ministry spokesman, put the death toll at 14. Reuters news agency said two warplanes hit the convoy in a desert region northwest of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast.

Awad said 17 people were killed three weeks later in a second strike. The third attack caused many of the smuggled weapons to explode and was by far the deadliest, he said.

The weapons were "modern and expensive-looking," he said, and "were headed for Gaza probably."

Israel's military refused to confirm or deny a role in any of the bombings.

But Olmert, speaking at an academic conference, said:

"We operate everywhere we can hit terror infrastructure -- in close places and in places farther away. Wherever we can hit terror infrastructure, we hit them and we hit them in a way that increases deterrence."

Olmert, who is scheduled to step down as prime minister next week, made the remark during a speech summing up his accomplishments. He said Israel had acted beyond its borders in "a series of incidents," a reference widely understood to include the bombing of an alleged Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 and the assassination of a top Hezbollah warlord in the Syrian capital last year.

Experts said Israeli warplanes had the range to fly the 1,680-mile round trip to Sudan.

Before ending the Gaza assault Jan. 18, Israel secured pledges from the United States and other Western nations to share intelligence on arms smuggling into Gaza and cooperate in blocking it.

Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a former Israeli army chief of staff, said Israel would have needed such help to locate smuggling convoys in Sudan.

Israeli officials say some Gaza-bound weapons move by sea from Iran to Yemen and others are purchased in Sudan's flourishing arms market.

Both routes converge over land through Sudan into Egypt and are used for smuggling migrants as well as weapons.

Reva Bhalla, a Washington-based analyst with the private intelligence firm Stratfor, said Iran pays for the weapons and often sends agents of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, to buy them in Sudan and to hire the smugglers.

Sudanese official Awad blamed the government for neglecting eastern Sudan, driving youths into the smuggling trade. Those killed "were boys, many 12 or 13 years old, looking to earn some money," he said.

After the attacks, relatives and tribesmen began searching for loved ones, he said.

"We missed our people and started investigating. We eventually found the wreckage."

Israeli defence officials have been accused of "grave ethical failures'" in testing an experimental anthrax vaccine on hundreds of Israeli soldiers by a panel of experts.

Several of the 716 soldiers who took part in the experiment in the late 1990s have complained of headaches, dizziness, skin, respiratory and digestive problems that they say are related to the vaccine.

[More:]

The panel of medical and legal experts said in a report obtained by the Associated Press news agency on Thursday that the soldiers were not properly informed of the possible risks.

Anthrax is a deadly bacterial disease and its spores can be used in germ warfare to infect victims.

The US has long required that its troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea be vaccinated against anthrax.

Tumours and infections

Some of the Israeli soldiers have reportedly developed tumours and suffered infections after being used in tests by the Israeli military to develop an anthrax vaccine.

The Israeli military, or IDF, said in a response to the report on Friday, that the experiment was of "strategic importance to Israel's security''.

According to the IDF, only 11 soldiers have sought help for side-effects and they have all received the appropriate treatment.

Volunteers were given "a detailed explanation about the vaccine, associated research and possible side effects'', the defence ministry said.

The vaccine programme had been ordered from 1998 to 2006 amid fears of an anthrax attack by Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, and because foreign-made vaccines were not available.

In its conclusions, the panel said it "was not convinced'' that decision makers properly evaluated the vaccine.

It also called into question the motives of some of the scientists involved in developing the vaccine because of their previous links to anthrax research.

"We found no clear justification for the experiment,'' the panel wrote, calling the test "seriously flawed".

"The purpose of the experiment was to examine the safety and efficacy of the vaccine for use among Israel's general population. But the experiment was
conducted on young, healthy soldiers, and it is not clear how its results could reflect on the population as a whole,'' it said.

"The possible risks and side-effects of the experiment weren't explored in depth'' and were concealed from the soldiers who took part, it concluded.

Soldiers were not monitored thoroughly during and after the experiment for any possible side effects, it said.

Side-effects

Dorit Tahan, 29, who volunteered for the experiment, said the report verifies what soldiers have long claimed.

"There was no medical supervision after the soldiers finished the shots. No one took care of the soldiers after the experiment,'' Tahan, who attributes her skin problems to the vaccine, said.

The Israeli military appointed the panel in 2007 after media reported on the soldiers' complaints.

It interviewed 83 soldiers and received testimony from 60 others who spoke to Physicians for Human Rights, the statement said.

It is not clear how many soldiers are suffering from side-effects.Source: Agencies

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For many years, the United States has had a policy against spending aid money to fund Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which successive administrations have regarded as an obstacle to peace. Yet private organizations in the United States continue to raise tax-exempt contributions for the very activities that the government opposes.

There's nothing illegal about the charitable contributions to pro-settlement organizations, which are documented in filings with the Internal Revenue Service. They're similar to tax-exempt donations made to thousands of foreign organizations around the world through groups that are often described as "American friends of" the recipient.

But critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns. A search of IRS records identified 28 U.S. charitable groups that made a total of $33.4 million in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007.

"This is an issue that has not gotten the attention it deserves," said Ori Nir, a spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, a lobbying group that opposes settlements. "I don't know how many people, including in the U.S. government, realize the extent of private American funding to settlements. . . . Every dollar that goes to settlements makes Middle East peace that much harder to reach."

[More:]

The Obama administration had an early confrontation over settlements when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Israel this month. She criticized Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in a largely Arab area of Jerusalem known as Silwan, just below the walls of the Old City. "Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful," she said. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat responded that Clinton was mistaken and that the Palestinian houses had been built illegally.

One of the Israeli organizations that has led the way in developing this area of East Jerusalem is called Ir David, or City of David. Like other pro-settlement groups, it has an active fundraising effort in the United States. According to Form 990s filed with the IRS, Friends of Ir David raised $8.7 million in 2004, $1.2 million in 2005 and $2.7 million in 2006.

The group's primary tax-exempt purpose, according to the IRS filings, is: "To create a charitable fund to provide financial aid & other reasonable assistance to benefit the Jewish people of the Old City of Jerusalem. To teach about the history and archeology of the biblical city of Jerusalem. To offer aid & assistance for education, housing & the rehabilitation of distressed properties."

A senior Jordanian official argued in an interview this week that Israeli pro-settlement groups such as Ir David are seeking to transform the demographic character of East Jerusalem so that a two-state solution with Jerusalem shared by Israeli and Palestinian governments will be impossible.

Hebron is another controversial area where settlements have received substantial tax-exempt gifts from America. According to IRS records, the Hebron Fund donated $860,637 in 2005 and $967,954 in 2006 for "social and educational well-being"; the fund's online mission statement makes clear this is for Israeli settlers inside the city. The Hebron settlement of Kiryat Arba received $730,000 in 2006 from a group called American Friends of Yeshiva High School of Kiryat Arba.

Often the U.S. charities will specify that their gifts are going to charities in Israel, even though the recipients are in the West Bank, which the United States regards as occupied territory. American Friends of the College of Judea and Samaria, for example, said its donations were "to provide for the expansion and furtherance of the needs of educational institutions in Israel," even though the college is in the settlement of Ariel. Similarly, other filings speak of gifts to "Elon Moreh, Israel," "Gush Etzion, Israel," "Karnei Shomron, Israel," "Efrat, Israel," and "Bat Ayin, Israel," even though those settlements are all in the West Bank.

A 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service stated: "The United States stipulates that U.S. aid funds cannot be used in the occupied territories." The issue came to a head during a 1992 dispute over the use of U.S. loan guarantees. A Jan. 25, 1992, story in the New York Times said that Secretary of State James A. Baker had cautioned Israel's ambassador "that the administration was not going to underwrite Israeli policies that fundamentally contradict its own principles and long-stated policies."

U.S.-Israeli friction over settlements is likely to increase as Israel forms a new conservative government under Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu. Indeed, the man he has selected as Israel's next foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, just east of Bethlehem.

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JERUSALEM: The Israeli military on Thursday disputed Palestinian claims that most of the people killed in the recent Gaza Strip war were civilians, claiming the "vast majority" of the dead were Hamas militants.

Israel says the three-week offensive was aimed solely at Hamas militants, while Palestinians say hundreds of people were killed by an overwhelming show of force that showed little regard for civilians.

Maj. Avital Leibovich, an army spokeswoman, said Thursday that the military had completed an investigation and determined that a total of 1,166 Palestinians were killed in the operation. It found that 709 were Hamas militants, while 295 were civilians, including 89 minors and 49 women. It was unclear whether another 162 men who died were militants or civilians.

The figures clashed with numbers released last week by the Palestine Center for Human Rights, which said 1,417 people were killed, including more than 900 civilians. Its toll included the names and ages of all of the dead.

The Israeli military said it also had a list of names, but the army did not provide it to reporters.

[More:]

The Palestinian center Thursday called the Israeli report "a deliberately manipulative attempt to distort the reality of the offensive and to disguise Israel's illegal actions." It said, for instance, that Israel wrongly classified 255 "noncombatant" police officers killed at the outset of the war as militants.

The heavy civilian death toll caused an international outcry and fueled calls from human rights groups for a war crimes investigation against Israel.

An Israeli military school's publication last week of soldiers' accounts of wanton destruction and slack rules of engagement that may have caused unnecessary civilian deaths, has added to the uproar.

The military's report was unlikely to resolve the debate over the death toll, although Leibovich said the army's information was "checked, crisscrossed and double-checked with the different intelligence bodies in Israel."

When asked to explain the discrepancy, she said "you have to ask your Palestinian sources" and acknowledged it was not a precise science.

"We are receiving different information from different sources, the majority of which is not based on hard evidence," she said. "I can tell you for a fact that our information is checked according to different intelligence organizations and Palestinian authorities and these are the right figures."

Israel waged the war in Gaza in an attempt to weaken Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group, and halt persistent rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli border towns.

Israel blames Hamas for the heavy civilian casualties, saying the group launches attacks from schools and residential areas and uses civilians as "human shields" to deter Israeli attacks.

President Barack Obama's administration has promised to become "vigorously engaged" in the search to end the Israeli-Arab conflict and has pledged $900 million to help rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed in the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who harshly criticized his predecessor's' peace efforts and said the Palestinians were not ready for independence said Thursday he does not expect to face pressure from Obama due to the "deep and strong" ties between Israel and the United States.

Netanyahu is expected to present his center-right coalition to parliament next week.

After signing a coalition pact with the centrist Labor Party Wednesday Netanyahu appeared to soften his previous stance, pledging that his government would be a "partner for peace with the Palestinians,"

At a White House press conference the day before, Obama described the current deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians as unsustainable.

"It is critical for us to advance a two-state solution," he added.

Asked by a reporter Thursday about Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu fielded the question by referring to the coalition agreement with Labor under which the new government would resume peace talks and commit itself to existing peace accords.

It was not clear if that included the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Both sides recommitted to the road map at a 2007 peace conference hosted by the United States.

This entry was posted on Mar 26, 2009 at 03:59:40 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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2 response(s) to Israel challenges Palestinian claim on Gaza dead

Any thing that the palestinians say is a lie. Anything that Hamas or Fatah say is a lie. These people are nothing but habitual liars and can't be trusted. The Israelis know this, thus their posturing. You'd be hard pressed to find a good honest palestinian.
There must be some.

The Israeli propaganda machine is alive and well. Facing mounting world criticism over its dealy attack and unforgivebale slaughter of fourteen hundred plus Gazans, Israel will do everything it can to contradict the Palestinian reports, the UN reports and numerous other reports on the casualties in Gaza. Enough of the lies! Israel should admit that mistakes were made and that civilians were murdered by Isreali military forces.

Netanyahu's assertion that "he does not expect to face pressure from Obama due to the "deep and strong" ties between Israel and the United States" is completley absurd. The USA, under the Obama government, stands for justice and freedom for all and a new way of thinking. Idealogies that do not fit in with Netanyahu's political party or with Israel proper.

Once the truth is revealed, the future will decide who supports Israel and who does not. Do not count your eggs to fast Netanyahu!

Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank pose for a photo after playing for Holocaust survivors at a center in Holon near Tel Aviv, Wednesday, March 25, 2009. The Palestinian youths stood facing the elderly Holocaust survivors Wednesday. Then they began to sing. The choir burst into songs for peace, bringing surprised smiles from the audience. But the event had an even more surprising twist: Most of the Holocaust survivors did not know the youths were Palestinians from the West Bank, a rare sight in Israel these days. And the youths had no idea they were performing for survivors of the Nazi genocide or even what the Holocaust was. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Holocaust survivors listen as Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank play at a center in Holon near Tel Aviv, Wednesday, March 25, 2009. The Palestinian youths stood facing the elderly Holocaust survivors Wednesday. Then they began to sing. The choir burst into songs for peace, bringing surprised smiles from the audience. But the event had an even more surprising twist: Most of the Holocaust survivors did not know the youths were Palestinians from the West Bank, a rare sight in Israel these days. And the youths had no idea they were performing for survivors of the Nazi genocide or even what the Holocaust was. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

By DIAA HADID

The Palestinian youths from the tough West Bank refugee camp stood facing the elderly Holocaust survivors Wednesday, appearing somewhat defiant in a teenage sort of way. Then they began to sing.

The choir burst into songs for peace, bringing surprised smiles from the audience. But the event had another twist: Most of the Holocaust survivors did not know the youths were Palestinians from the West Bank, a rare sight in Israel these days. And the youths had no idea they were performing for people who lived through Nazi genocide — or even what the Holocaust was.

[More:]

"I feel sympathy for them," Ali Zeid, an 18-year-old keyboard player who said he was shocked by what he learned about the Holocaust, in which the Nazis killed 6 million Jews in their campaign to wipe out European Jewry.

"Only people who have been through suffering understand each other," said Zeid, who said his grandparents were Palestinian refugees forced to flee the northern city of Haifa during the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948.

The 13 musicians, aged 11 to 18, belong to "Strings of Freedom," a modest orchestra from the hardscrabble Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the scene of a deadly 2002 battle between Palestinian militants and Israeli soldiers.

The event, held at the Holocaust Survivors Center in this tree-lined central Israeli town, was part of "Good Deeds Day," an annual event run by an organization connected to billionaire Shari Arison, Israel's richest woman.

The two-hour meeting starkly highlighted how distant Palestinians and Israelis have become after more than eight years of bloody Palestinian militant attacks and deadly Israeli military reprisals.

Most of the Palestinian youths had not seen an Israeli civilian before — only gun-toting soldiers in military uniforms manning checkpoints, conducting arrest raids of wanted Palestinians or during army operations.

"They don't look like us," said Ahed Salameh, 12, who wore a black head scarf woven with silver.

Most of the elderly Israelis wore pants and T-shirts, with women sporting a smear of lipstick.

"Old people look different where we come from," Salameh said.

She said she was shocked to hear about the Nazi genocide against Jews. Ignorance and even denial of the Holocaust is widespread in Palestinian society.

Amnon Beeri of the Abraham Fund, which supports coexistence between Jews and Arabs, said most of the region's residents have "no real idea about the other."

The youths said their feisty conductor, Wafa Younis, 50, tried to explain to them who the elderly people were, but chaos on the bus prevented them from listening.

The elderly audience said they assumed Arab children were from a nearby village — not from the refugee camp where 23 Israeli soldiers were killed, alongside 53 Palestinian militants and civilians, in several days of battle in April 2002.

Some 30 elderly survivors gathered in the center's hall as teenage boys and girls filed in 30 minutes late — delayed at an Israeli military checkpoint outside their town, they later explained.

Some of the young women wore Muslim head scarves — but also sunglasses and school ties.

As a host announced in Hebrew that the youths were from the Jenin refugee camp, there were gasps and muttering from the crowd. "Jenin?" one woman asked in jaw-dropped surprise.

Younis, from the Arab village of Ara in Israel, then explained in fluent Hebrew that the youths would sing for peace, prompting the audience to burst into applause.

"Inshallah," said Sarah Glickman, 68, using the Arabic term for "God willing."

The encounter began with an Arabic song, "We sing for peace," and was followed by two musical pieces with violins and Arabic drums, as well as an impromptu song in Hebrew by two in the audience.

Glickman, whose family moved to the newly created Jewish state in 1949 after fleeing to Siberia to escape the Nazis, said she had no illusions the encounter would make the children understand the Holocaust. But she said it might make a "small difference."

"They think we are strangers, because we came from abroad," Glickman said. "I agree: It's their land, also. But there was no other option for us after the Holocaust."

Later, she tapped her feet in tune as the teenagers played a catchy Mideast drum beat. After the event, some of the elderly Israelis chatted with students and took pictures together.

The encounter was not absent of politics. Younis dedicated a song to an Israeli soldier held captive by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip — and also criticized Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

But she said the main mission of the orchestra, formed seven years ago to help Palestinian children overcome war trauma, was to bring people together.

THIS article poses two questions: on the day after US/Nato forces invade and occupy some of Balochistan and Waziristan, what will we say we should have done, and why aren’t we doing it now? Is this far-fetched?

The facts suggest otherwise. Like the US invasion of Iraq, plans for covert operations and military strikes against Pakistan have not only circulated for long among influential US groups, they are visibly under implementation. Again, like Bush, the Obama presidency has provided the opportunity to implement these plans.

Obama has been elected on a Democratic Party platform that holds that ‘The greatest threat to the security of the Afghan people — and the American people — lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train, plot attacks and strike into Afghanistan and move back across the border. We cannot tolerate a sanctuary for Al Qaeda.” It defines Pakistan as ‘a nuclear-armed nation at the nexus of terror, extremism and … instability’ and goes on to promise that ‘we will lead a global effort … to secure all nuclear weapons material at vulnerable sites within four years’.

[More:]

There cannot be a clearer statement of US intentions. Nor are the outlines of likely US actions entirely unknown. The logic of the US action will be provided by Kampuchea; the tactics by Kosovo on our western borders and Palestine on our eastern borders. Naturally, historical analogies are far from exact, but they do merit study.

Even though the contextual background of the US bombing of Kampuchea departs from the situation in Pakistan on many points, what is common to the two is that US troops are bogged down in adjacent Afghanistan, the Americans believe that their ‘enemy’ is able to find ‘sanctuaries’ and ‘safe havens’ in Pakistan, and they have been conducting covert bombing operations in Pakistan for some time, which have progressively intensified.

We should not be misled by diplomatic pleasantries. In April 1969, Richard Nixon assured Prince Sihanouk that the US respected ‘the sovereignty, neutrality and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia …’ Over the next 14 months the US dropped 2,750,000 tons of bombs on Kampuchea, more than the total dropped by the Allies in the Second World War. In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister, Lon Nol. The country’s borders were closed, and the US and the Republic of Vietnam Army (ARVN) launched incursions into Kampuchea to attack the People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (VPA/NLF) bases.

The coup against Sihanouk and the US bombing destabilised Kampuchea and increased support for the Khmer Rouge. The parallels to recent developments in Pakistan are obvious.

Unlike Vietnam and Kampuchea around 1960, however, the Americans do not intend to withdraw from Afghanistan. Instead, in pursuit of a ‘surge’ strategy, some 17,000 US troops are expected to arrive in Afghanistan in the coming months; and the US appears to be digging in for a long stay. This creates enormous supply problems to which solutions, significantly, are being put together without dependence on Pakistan.

On March 17, 2009, Gen Duncan McNab testified before the armed services committee that the US military is reconsidering the long-term viability of the Khyber Pass supply route, through which 140 containers pass every day. Earlier this month therefore the US inaugurated the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) a rail-truck transit corridor passing through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with a capacity of 100 containers of non-lethal supplies per day.

To consolidate the NDN, officials from US, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey met in Baku on March 9-10, 2009 to establish a supply spur in the Caucasus. Even so, the closure of the Manas airbase outside Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan in February has been a severe blow to US supply capabilities from the north.

A solution to these problems can be found by creating an independent corridor to the Arabian Sea in Balochistan. This corridor, together with the occupation of Afghanistan, would also ensure US access to Central Asian crude oil, the raison d’etre of the so-called war on terror.

The groundwork for this scenario has already been laid by influential US groups in the military and intelligence community: comparing Pakistan to Yugoslavia, predicting civil war and advocating break-up supported by a map in the 2006 US Armed Forces Journal. These proposals would be endorsed by US Vice President Joe Biden, who supports the division of Iraq along ethnic lines. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), trained and financed by US and British intelligence services (among others), is said to be Washington’s chosen model to be replicated in Balochistan.

On the eastern front the Indians have been pressing the Americans to accept their right to unilateral military strikes inside Pakistan in self-defence, as they accept Israel’s rights in Palestinian territories; and as the Americans have claimed for themselves throughout the world. For well over a decade now, Israel has been teaching the Indians what they have learned in their repression of the Palestinians. In the wake of the Mumbai incident, Indian planes crossed over into Pakistani air space.

According to press reports, US Admiral Mullen sought formal approval for Indians to execute ‘surgical strikes’ inside Pakistan, like the US does, but Pakistan refused. Clearly, this is not the last we have heard of this and India will continue to pursue its policy of keeping Pakistan under the maximal sustainable military, diplomatic and economic pressure.

To conclude, then, there are good reasons to believe that a US-Israel-India axis is in pursuit of a coordinated plan to balkanise militarily consequential Muslim states (next Pakistan, then Iran — the order reversed by Musharraf’s weak military policies); ‘secure’ Pakistan’s nuclear weapons; support Baloch irredentism not only to open a corridor both for logistic support of its troops in Afghanistan and for export of Central Asian crude oil, but also to weaken Iran and Pakistan in the long-term; coerce the Pakistan Army into a civil war (advocating suppression of the Taliban by force in Pakistan, while admitting the failure of exactly this policy in Afghanistan); and further consolidate its hold over civilian leadership by creating the kind of financial dependency that would allow it to control ‘democratic’ elections, and to annul their results if they were unfavourable (as Israel did with Hamas).

Reportedly, Obama is expected to consider and approve options soon, and increased US military activity should take place once the snow melts. One hopes that a small group of patriotic officers in Pakistan are also asking themselves what can be done, and why aren’t we doing it now.

This entry was posted on Mar 26, 2009 at 02:22:25 pm and is filed under American Empire.
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Residue of allergy, cholesterol, other meds were in fish near 5 major cities

Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday.

Findings from this first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue have prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly expand similar ongoing research to more than 150 different locations.

"The average person hopefully will see this type of a study and see the importance of us thinking about water that we use every day, where does it come from, where does it go to? We need to understand this is a limited resource and we need to learn a lot more about our impacts on it," said study co-author Bryan Brooks, a Baylor University researcher and professor who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment.

[More:]

A person would have to eat hundreds of thousands of fish dinners to get even a single therapeutic dose, Brooks said. But researchers including Brooks have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residues can harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species because of their constant exposure to contaminated water.

Brooks and his colleague Kevin Chambliss tested fish caught in rivers where wastewater treatment plants release treated sewage in Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Orlando, Fla. For comparison, they also tested fish from New Mexico's pristine Gila River Wilderness Area, an area isolated from human sources of pollution.

March 10: A shocking Associated Press investigation finds various pharmaceuticals in the drinking supplies of at least 41 million Americans. NBC's Tom Costello reports.

MSNBC
Earlier research has confirmed that fish absorb medicines because the rivers they live in are contaminated with traces of drugs that are not removed in sewage treatment plants. Much of the contamination comes from the unmetabolized residues of pharmaceuticals that people have taken and excreted; unused medications dumped down the drain also contribute to the problem.

The researchers, whose work was funded by a $150,000 EPA grant, tested fish for 24 different pharmaceuticals, as well as 12 chemicals found in personal care products.

Traces of meds found at all sites tested

They found trace concentrations of seven drugs and two soap scent chemicals in fish at all five of the urban river sites. The amounts varied, but some of the fish had combinations of many of the compounds in their livers.

The researchers didn't detect anything in the reference fish caught in rural New Mexico.

This entry was posted on Mar 26, 2009 at 08:51:37 am and is filed under Environment.
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Criticism by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League has drawn attention to the Oliphant cartoon and resulted in the cartoon being reprinted all over the world -- including here.

By Jeremy Gantz

The latest cartoon by the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world has raised the ire of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which is dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism.

The ADL's director called the syndicated cartoon, published Wednesday and reprinted below, "hideously anti-Semitic."

[More:]

"Pat Oliphant's outlandish and offensive use of the Star of David in combination with Nazi-like imagery is hideously anti-Semitic," Abraham Foxman said in a statement released Wednesday. "It employs Nazi imagery by portraying Israel as a jack-booted, goose-stepping headless apparition. The implication is of an Israeli policy without a head or a heart."

As of late Wednesday, Oliphant had not responded publicly to the ADL's criticism of the cartoon.

Israel in late December launched a three-week offensive in Gaza which left over 1,300 Palestinians dead and countless of homes destroyed. The offensive was a retaliation for Palestine rocket attacks on Israeli territory. Rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli military responses have occurred sporadically since the end of the offensive.

On Monday, a United Nations expert called called for a probe to assess if the Israeli forces could differentiate between civilian and military targets in Gaza. A U.S. State Department spokesman called that official's views "biased."

The cartoon by the Pulitzer-prize winning Australian native was published by the Washington Post, Slate, and Yahoo! News, among other publications and websites.

Oliphant, who has published 20 books collecting his drawings, is no stranger to controversy, having once said that political correctness "drives me crazy." His cartoons upset the Asian American Journalists Association in 2001 and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in 2005.

But while Oliphant's work has made him enemies, it has also won him accolades: He has won the National Cartoonist Society Editorial Cartoon Award, along with a Pulitzer.

Oliphant's cartoon comes barely one month after a New York Post cartoon depicting a dead chimp triggered protests. Protesters believed the chimp represented President Barack Obama and demanded the newspaper be shut down. Post Publisher Rupert Murdoch later apologized for the cartoon.

This entry was posted on Mar 26, 2009 at 07:44:41 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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To the chagrin of Arabs, Americans and Europeans, Avigdor Lieberman wants to be Israel's next foreign minister. To allay their concerns, he is doing his best to shed his reputation as a virulent racist.

Things get tight as the members of parliament meet at their headquarters on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. The conference room, about the size of an ordinary living room, is really too small to accommodate the party's new abundance of power. The Israel Our Home party (Yisrael Beiteinu), with its 15 seats, is now the third-largest faction in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and will join the new government. Eventually everyone in the room takes a seat at a small, horseshoe-shaped table.

[More:]

Avigdor Lieberman, 50, squeezes his bulky frame into a chair at the head of the table, facing a tray of sticky chocolate croissants and soft drinks. "We have achieved a lot," he says, in his Russian-accented Hebrew, pronouncing his O's as A's and rolling his R's. A yellowed map of the faded Soviet Union hangs on the wall.

Lieberman founded and shaped his party. For him, an immigrant from the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, a new era is about to begin. He intends to be Israel's new foreign minister. It will be a historic moment, and he can hardly wait. "The faster a government is formed, the better for the country," he tells the media patriotically.

The man who is set to become Israel's chief diplomat is known for many things, but not his talent for diplomacy. Words like compromise or consideration have been absent from his vocabulary so far. When then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed releasing 350 Palestinian prisoners in 2003, Lieberman uttered one of his notorious sentences: "It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea."

His words have the force of cluster bombs. He spares no one. He once proposed executing Arab members of the Knesset with ties to Hamas to Hezbollah as "Nazi collaborators." Later he suggested that Israel should proceed in the Gaza Strip the way Russia did in Chechnya -- without consideration for losses or civilians. This remark gained him a reputation as a virulent racist.

If Lieberman had his way, perhaps Tehran would have been obliterated, as a punishment for Iran's refusal to shut down its nuclear program. Years ago he threatened Egypt -- Israel's key ally in the Arab world -- with the bombardment of the Aswan Dam unless the regime withdrew support for then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He also had one of his typical remarks at the ready for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It was about time the president paid a visit to Jerusalem, Lieberman said, "and if he doesn't want to come, he can go to hell."

Cairo has made clear that the foreign minister-designate remains persona non grata in Egypt, and that he won't be received unless he issues an apology first. To protest the Lieberman choice, the Egyptian ambassador in Tel Aviv may not attend a celebration in Jerusalem this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal.

Benjamin Netanyahu helped Lieberman's early career in politics.
For many Arab governments the thought of Lieberman as foreign minister is tantamount to a declaration of war. In the United States, where President Barack Obama wants to pursue an "aggressive" policy of peace in the Middle East, the declared foe of the negotiation process may face a cool reception. The European Union will probably not behave any differently. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana calls Lieberman "a man with whom I have been at odds for my entire life."

Benjamin Netanyahu, who will soon become Israel's prime minister for the second time, would have preferred to avoid such problems. He wanted to place the warhorse into a lower-profile position, such as finance minister. But Lieberman is set on being foreign minister. Netanyahu managed to forge a government on Tuesday with Ehud Barak's Labor Party -- but not without first closing coalition deals with two of Israel's right-wing parties, including Lieberman's.

It's an irony of history that Lieberman can now dictate terms to the man who paved his way in politics. Lieberman started his career in the right-wing Likud Party as an activist for the party's student wing. Netanyahu appointed him party secretary in 1993, and in 1996 Lieberman ran Netanyahu's first successful campaign for prime minister. He was then named Director-General of the Prime Minister's Office. But he left Likud in 1999 to found a competing, nationalist party, "Israel Beitenu," or Israel Our Home -- which immediately secured four seats in the Knesset.

Since then, Lieberman has been part of almost every administration, but he has always found an excuse to leave the government and join the opposition. As transportation minister under Ariel Sharon, he resigned to protest Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The next prime minister, Ehud Olmert, invented a new post for him, the Ministry of Strategic Planning, but Lieberman resigned because of the peace talks in Annapolis, one of the many unsuccessful attempts to bring permanent peace to the Israelis and Palestinians.

Lieberman dressed up each of his resignations as the result of his unwillingness to compromise -- out of pure conviction, of course -- but in fact he wanted to shine a favorable light on his party before the next election, a strategy that almost always succeeded.

But now he will be Israel's next foreign minister -- an unbelievable step up the ladder, even by Israeli standards. Never before has an immigrant from the former Soviet Union made it so far.

'Vladimir the Thug'

Lieberman was 20 when he arrived in Israel in 1978. At first he made ends meet by working as a baggage handler for the national airline, El Al, then -- famously -- as a nightclub bouncer. He is said to have literally hunted down Arabs in his student days, a rumor he denies. According to official records, however, he was charged with having hit a boy in the face who had beaten up his son. Lieberman confessed to the crime in a court two years later and was fined and ordered to pay compensation. The satirical television show "Hartzufim," the Israeli version of the British satirical puppet show "Spitting Image," named a doll after him: Vladimir the Thug.

The name fits. Lieberman wants to turn all of Israel into a virtually exclusive club for Jews. He sees minorities as a threat, and in the election campaign he demanded that Arab Israelis should take a "loyalty test" to ensure their patriotism. He bluntly expresses ideas many Israelis may think but won't venture to say out loud.

Even Tzipi Livni, the current foreign minister, who is respectable and moderate compared with Lieberman, recently suggested that Israeli Arabs should seek their "national identity" in a Palestinian state. The tenor of her remarks was that in Israel, at any rate, they were not about to organize any Arab nationalism.

Lieberman used to align himself with advocates of a Greater Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. But he's no fundamentalist Jew for whom the partition of the country would constitute a sacrilege. He lives in a settlement on the West Bank, but he would give up his house for peace, he said recently. "I support a viable Palestinian state," he claims.

Lieberman is fond of combining ideas from the right and the left. For instance, he proposes redrawing the border between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, thereby annexing groups of settlements while ceding Arab cities near the border. For this reason, even some moderate Palestinians see Lieberman as a thug who can be a pragmatist.

The former negotiator Mohammed Dahlan has called Lieberman a "key to peace," at least according to Jossi Beilin, one of the architects of the Oslo Agreement in the early 1990s. In his recent book "Innocent Abroad," Martin Indyk, one of the US negotiators at the failed Camp David talks in 2000, describes a secret channel of communication between Lieberman and an envoy of then-PLO President Yasser Arafat. According to Indyk, Lieberman agreed in principle to the Barak administration's territorial concessions.

So is Lieberman a thug with pragmatist tendencies? Such transformations can never be completely ruled out in Israel, the land of extremes. Ariel Sharon, the father of settlement construction on Palestinian soil, later withdrew Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip. His successor, Ehud Olmert, wanted to "Judaize" Arab East Jerusalem. Today he advocates dividing the city.

Even Lieberman is starting to exhibit symptoms of prudence. A few weeks ago, he paid a visit to a well-known Israeli geographer, who used maps to show Lieberman how Jerusalem, the Holy City, could be divided up between the Jews and the Palestinians. "He was very interested," the geographer said after the meeting.

This entry was posted on Mar 25, 2009 at 10:03:27 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Tuesday regarding a bill that decriminalizes small amounts of marijuana.

According to the Office of Fiscal Analysis, there were 9,928 marijuana arrests in Connecticut in 2007, which represents 7 percent of total arrests statewide. Based on prior research findings, it is estimated that approximately 33 percent of those arrests - or 3,300 - were for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana.

“Based on a proportionate analysis of resources currently allocated to handle these offenses, it is estimated that the proposal could save up to $11 million and generate $320,000 in General Fund revenue - from fines - annually,” the OFA report says.

This entry was posted on Mar 25, 2009 at 09:44:08 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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“It is time to share the wealth! Tax the rich!” Carmen Cordero of Vencinos Unidos told a cheering crowd of about 1,000 gathered outside the state Capitol Wednesday afternoon.

Cordero’s group is just one of 40 that make up the Better Choices for Connecticut coalition, which is advocating for fewer cuts to public services and an income tax increase for families making more than $200,000 a year. It also is proposing a penny increase in the sales tax, a reduction in the film industry tax credit, and higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco.

This entry was posted on Mar 25, 2009 at 09:36:05 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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This 71-page report FROM Human Rights Watch provides witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza. Human Rights Watch researchers in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school. The report also presents ballistics evidence, photographs, and satellite imagery, as well as documents from the Israeli military and government.

This entry was posted on Mar 25, 2009 at 01:38:56 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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White phosphorus was found to be used in residential areas during the Gaza offensive [Reuters]

A report by an international rights group has said that Israel's use of white phosphorus during its recent offensive on the Gaza Strip is evidence of war crimes.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday that the munitions were fired indiscriminately and over densely populated areas during the 23-day war, leading to many casualties.

"In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at HRW and co-author of the report, said.

"It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died."

[More:]

'Senior approval'

The report said that senior commanders must have approved what they saw as a pattern or policy in white phosphorus use.
In depth

HRW has called for Israeli senior commanders to be held to account and for an international investigation to take place, since an Israeli Defence Force (IDF) inquiry is likely to be neither "thorough" nor "impartial".

The 71-page report documents evidence of spent shells and white phosphorus found in residential areas, city streets, a hospital and a UN school.

It follows reports by Amnesty International, the international rights group, and the UN alleging the improper use of white phosphorus by Israel.

Armies typically use the munition to obscure their operations on the ground via the thick smoke created. It can also be used to set targets alight.

The munitions are legal in open areas, but illegal when used unnecessarily and in civilian areas.

Location critical

Chris Cobb-Smith, a security consultant who co-authored a report with Amnesty International on the munitions' use, said that the important point was not the employment of the weapon, but where it was used.

"An important thing to remember about white phosphorus is that it is not an illegal weapons system. It is perfectly legal, but it must be used in the right way," Cobb-Smith told Al Jazeera.

"It is illegal to fire at humans. It is even illegal to fire this weapons system at enemy troops.

"It is purely an obscurant. It is purely to provide a smoke screen for soldiers on the battlefield.

"But there is absolutely no military tactical reason to use white phosphorus in a built up area. It can provide no use whatsoever.

"It was used at a time before the IDF actually commenced their ground offensive into Gaza itself. They were miles away from Gaza City when they first used this weapons system."

Israel originally denied using the munitions during its war on the Gaza Strip which began on December 27 last year, but later said it would hold an internal investigation into its improper use. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

This entry was posted on Mar 25, 2009 at 01:25:47 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money.

We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.

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Theodor Adorno in 1967 wrote an essay called “Education After Auschwitz.” He argued that the moral corruption that made the Holocaust possible remained “largely unchanged.” He wrote that “the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds” must be made visible. Schools had to teach more than skills. They had to teach values. If they did not, another Auschwitz was always possible.

“All political instruction finally should be centered upon the idea that Auschwitz should never happen again,” he wrote. “This would be possible only when it devotes itself openly, without fear of offending any authorities, to this most important of problems. To do this, education must transform itself into sociology, that is, it must teach about the societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms.”

Our elites are imploding. Their fraud and corruption are slowly being exposed as the disparity between their words and our reality becomes wider and more apparent. The rage that is bubbling up across the country will have to be countered by the elite with less subtle forms of control. But unless we grasp the “societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms” we will be cursed with a more ruthless form of corporate power, one that does away with artifice and the seduction of a consumer society and instead wields power through naked repression.

I had lunch a few days ago in Toronto with Henry Giroux, professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University in Canada and who for many years was the Waterbury Chair Professor at Penn State. Giroux, who has been one of the most prescient and vocal critics of the corporate state and the systematic destruction of American education, was driven to the margins of academia because he kept asking the uncomfortable questions Adorno knew should be asked by university professors. He left the United States in 2004 for Canada.

“The emergence of what Eisenhower had called the military-industrial-academic complex had secured a grip on higher education that may have exceeded even what he had anticipated and most feared,” Giroux, who wrote “The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex,” told me. “Universities, in general, especially following the events of 9/11, were under assault by Christian nationalists, reactionary neoconservatives and market fundamentalists for allegedly representing the weak link in the war on terrorism. Right-wing students were encouraged to spy on the classes of progressive professors, the corporate grip on the university was tightening as made clear not only in the emergence of business models of governance, but also in the money being pumped into research and programs that blatantly favored corporate interests. And at Penn State, where I was located at the time, the university had joined itself at the hip with corporate and military power. Put differently, corporate and Pentagon money was now funding research projects and increasingly knowledge was being militarized in the service of developing weapons of destruction, surveillance and death. Couple this assault with the fact that faculty were becoming irrelevant as an oppositional force. Many disappeared into discourses that threatened no one, some simply were too scared to raise critical issues in their classrooms for fear of being fired, and many simply no longer had the conviction to uphold the university as a democratic public sphere.”

Frank Donoghue, the author of “The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities,” details how liberal arts education has been dismantled. Any form of learning that is not strictly vocational has at best been marginalized and in many schools has been abolished. Students are steered away from asking the broad, disturbing questions that challenge the assumptions of the power elite or an economic system that serves the corporate state. This has led many bright graduates into the arms of corporate entities they do not examine morally or ethically. They accept the assumptions of corporate culture because they have never been taught to think.

Only 8 percent of U.S. college graduates now receive degrees in the humanities, about 110,000 students. Between 1970 and 2001, bachelor’s degrees in English declined from 7.6 percent to 4 percent, as did degrees in foreign languages (2.4 percent to 1 percent), mathematics (3 percent to 1 percent), social science and history (18.4 percent to 10 percent). Bachelor’s degrees in business, which promise the accumulation of wealth, have skyrocketed. Business majors since 1970-1971 have risen from 13.6 percent of the graduation population to 21.7 percent. Business has now replaced education, which has fallen from 21 percent to 8.2 percent, as the most popular major.

The values that sustain an open society have been crushed. A university, as John Ralston Saul writes, now “actively seeks students who suffer from the appropriate imbalance and then sets out to exaggerate it. Imagination, creativity, moral balance, knowledge, common sense, a social view—all these things wither. Competitiveness, having an ever-ready answer, a talent for manipulating situations—all these things are encouraged to grow. As a result amorality also grows; as does extreme aggressivity when they are questioned by outsiders; as does a confusion between the nature of good versus having a ready answer to all questions. Above all, what is encouraged is the growth of an undisciplined form of self-interest, in which winning is what counts.”

This moral nihilism would have terrified Adorno. He knew that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed and confused population, a system of propaganda and a press that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hyper-masculinity, one championed by ruthless capitalists (think of the brutal backstabbing and deception cheered by TV shows like “Survivor”) and Hollywood action heroes like the governor of California.

“This educational ideal of hardness, in which many may believe without reflecting about it, is utterly wrong,” Adorno wrote. “The idea that virility consists in the maximum degree of endurance long ago became a screen-image for masochism that, as psychology has demonstrated, aligns itself all too easily with sadism.”

Sadism is as much a part of popular culture as it is of corporate culture. It dominates pornography, runs like an electric current through reality television and trash-talk programs and is at the core of the compliant, corporate collective. Corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice. And it has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our lack of compassion for the homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed and the sick.

“The political and economic forces fuelling such crimes against humanity—whether they are unlawful wars, systemic torture, practiced indifference to chronic starvation and disease or genocidal acts—are always mediated by educational forces,” Giroux said. “Resistance to such acts cannot take place without a degree of knowledge and self-reflection. We have to name these acts and transform moral outrage into concrete attempts to prevent such human violations from taking place in the first place.”

The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy, as Immanuel Kant wrote, is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate.

Moral autonomy is what the corporate state, with all its attacks on liberal institutions and “leftist” professors, has really set out to destroy. The corporate state holds up as our ideal what Adorno called “the manipulative character.” The manipulative character has superb organizational skills and the inability to have authentic human experiences. He or she is an emotional cripple and driven by an overvalued realism. The manipulative character is a systems manager. He or she exclusively trained to sustain the corporate structure, which is why our elites are wasting mind-blowing amounts of our money on corporations like Goldman Sachs and AIG. “He makes a cult of action, activity, of so-called efficiency as such which reappears in the advertising image of the active person,” Adorno wrote of this personality type. These manipulative characters, people like Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, AIG’s Edward Liddy and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, along with most of our ruling class, have used corporate money and power to determine the narrow parameters of the debate in our classrooms, on the airwaves and in the halls of Congress while they looted the country.

“It is especially difficult to fight against it,” warned Adorno, “because those manipulative people, who actually are incapable of true experience, for that very reason manifest an unresponsiveness that associates them with certain mentally ill or psychotic characters, namely schizoids.”

This entry was posted on Mar 25, 2009 at 09:48:15 am and is filed under American Empire.
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'The bomb was hidden in a small roadside shed between two checkpoints.'

Fatah’s Abass Zaki blamed Israel for the killing and warned it would have serious repercussions in Lebanon and the Palestinian camps. "Those behind the killing are working in one way or another for Israel," he told the press.

By Franklin Lamb – Sidon, Lebanon

Yesterday afternoon, Kamal Medhat, 58, known in Lebanon's Palestinian Camps affectionately as 'Kamal Naji', a senior member of the Palestinian Fatah movement was killed exiting Mieh Meih Camp by a 25-30 kilogram bomb. The bomb was hidden in a small roadside shed between two checkpoints, one manned by the Lebanese army and the other at the Kifah el Musallah Camp security check point. According to Fatah intelligence sources, a man on a tall building near the Camp entrance watched Medhat's car approach and detonated it as he passed at almost exactly 2 pm.

The bombing appears to have been an assassination hit aimed at the Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon, Abass Zaki. Also killed were Akram Daher, Director of the PLO's youth organization in Lebanon, and Medhat’s bodyguards, Khaled Daher and Mohammed Shehadeh. Three Palestinians in a second car were seriously injured and are being treated in hospital.

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Fatah sources claim the real target was Abass Zaki, the PLO Diplomatic Representative to Lebanon. Zaki had left Mieh Mieh, a camp of about 5,000 refugees, about 7 minutes earlier in a nearly identical window-darkened black car to that of his deputy, Kamal Medhat. Medhat had paused in exiting the Camp to further express his condolences at a funeral held for his friend and Chairman of the Mieh Mieh Camp Popular Committee, Raef Naufal who was killed while trying to calm down a two-family feud between the Faraj and Kaouch families two days earlier.

The much respected Medhat, who joined Fatah from his village near Gaza when he was sixteen years old, was a loyalist to, and confidant of Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad. He rose within the PLO’s ranks and earned a PhD in International relations and military science in the USSR. Recently Medhat played a key role in tamping down violence and tension among various groups in Ein el Helwe and in fostering dialogue among Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian community. Among his PLO portfolios was former Head of Intelligence in Lebanon. PLO Embassy staff noted that Medhat had recently expressed to colleagues his suspicions that he was being targeted for assassination and that he advised his superiors in Ramallah of his concerns.

Their response, if any, was not known to the Embassy staff, but according to Fatah sources close to Zaki, the Mokhabarat Jeish Lebnene (Lebanese army intelligence) has been warning both Medhat and Zaki not to move around the Camps and to restrict their movements outside their secured offices.

Zaki, mild mannered, reserved, and a bit formal and distant on first meeting, appears to be increasingly well liked in the Palestinian and Lebanese community. He is available to his people and at virtually every Palestinian event I have attended the past 30 months, Zaki was there—from distributing laptops to Palestinian youngsters on the 26th anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre last September 16 in Shatila Camp, or various rallies in support of Gaza. He rarely missed Palestinian holidays or commemorative events at UNESCO Palace or other venues and sometimes joined with Hamas leader Osama Hamdan, in preaching Palestinian unity.

Whoever tried to kill him knew that there was a very good chance that Zaka would, in Arab tradition, visit Mieh Mieh yesterday for the funeral of his friend and colleague, Raef Naufal.

There is common agreement in Lebanon’s Palestinian community Tuesday morning that the motive for the assassination attempt was to torpedo the growing intra-Palestinian unity moves in Lebanon and in order to undermine Lebanon’s recent stability. Zaki and his colleagues have been working hard for Fatah-Hamas unity in Lebanon.

Fatah’s Zaki blamed Israel for the killing and warned it would have serious repercussions in Lebanon and the Palestinian camps. "Those behind the killing are working in one way or another for Israel," he told the press.

Osama Hamdan, the popular representative of Hamas in Lebanon, condemned the killing, saying it was aimed at creating discord in Palestinian camps. Hezbollah said the attack bore "the fingerprints of the Zionists and was aimed at sowing discord."

No one has claimed responsibility and no one likely will. The most frequently mentioned suspects this morning include Israel, Syria, Egypt and the US.

One suspect mentioned is a “third party Palestinian faction” led by Mohammad Dahlan in Ramallah working on behalf of Israel and the US and wanting to prevent Palestinian unity to confront Israel.

Some have mentioned an Egyptian involvement arguing that Mubarak does not want the Cairo talks to succeed because he fears Hamas with have the upper hand in becoming the new Palestinian leadership.

A Lebanese army source noted that the 30 kilo bomb used (one body was thrown 200 meters from one of the two destroyed vehicles and Medhat’s car was literally blown up the hill into an olive grove) was similar to the m.o. used in the Tripoli attacks on the Army in 2007. Fatah el Islam is the primary suspect in that attack.

The fact of the two-day, Beirut-hosted Arab Interior Ministers’ Meeting which ended yesterday at the Phoenicia Hotel and which was focusing on “Combating Internal Terrorism” may have been the recipient of a message from Al Qaeda or another group has been speculated upon.

Kassem, a very knowledgeable Fatah official in Shatila Camp and longtime friend, reported a fairly common deep suspicion that Syria was somehow behind the killing.

Kassem, it must be said, is no admirer of the Syrian Assad regime. At the beginning of the Syrian instigated Camp Wars in the mid-1980’s, when the Amal militia cut electricity, Kassem was hauling an electrical generator from Shatila Camp to Akka Hospital on Kuwait Embassy road and was stopped by a Syrian Army patrol and accused of supporting Yassir Arafat from whom the Syrian were trying to wrest control of the PLO. Tortured repeatedly, and imprisoned for four years, Kassem sees Syrian involvement yesterday at Mieh Mieh:

“Maybe they used Fatah el Islam in Meih Meih of Jund el Sham or others. But they don’t need those fools. Syria has the same intelligence capability as before their army left in 2005. For sure they have never stopped trying to split and control the PLO for their own benefit and not for ours."

“I am not so convinced it was the Syrians, Bapa (father). The Israelis still have plenty of agents in the camps. We all know that for sure. Remember the recent Israeli spies caught? I thought that one man was one for a long time. There are even Israeli spies inside Hezbollah like their trusted vehicle-supplier man in Nabetiyeh arrested a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s not the Syrians but the Israelis.”

Like just about everything that happens in Lebanon these days, yesterday’s assassination is analyzed locally through the prism of who stands to gain by this crime in the fast approaching June 7 election. The Pro US-Saudi March 14 ‘majority team’ or the pro-Syrian-Iran March 8th Opposition lead by Hezbollah?

Meanwhile the Lebanese authorities promise an immediate, thorough investigation to find those responsible for the murders at Mieh Mieh. The good people of Lebanon, as is their fate, will patiently wait for the Investigation Report, just as they still wait for the reports of the Lebanese investigations into the most recent 46 political assassinations in Lebanon over the past decade, more than half of those killed being body guards of the intended victims.

- Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

This entry was posted on Mar 24, 2009 at 10:30:51 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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An adroit lobbying campaign has cracked open the bountiful Israeli market for U.S.-grown pistachios.

It took many years, false starts and dead ends, all in the shadow of the fraught relationship between the United States and Iran. Diplomats and politicians got involved, at the highest levels. The solution itself is a bit of bank shot. And yet, it's already paying off as pistachio shipments from California's San Joaquin Valley climb.

"This has been for us an issue that's been very frustrating, to say the least," Richard Matoian, executive director of the Fresno, Calif.-based Western Pistachio Association, said Friday.

The historic problem, U.S. growers say, has been that low-cost Iranian pistachios were imported into Israel via Turkey. That stings, because Israel potentially is a lucrative market. The county leads the world in per-capita pistachio consumption.

In theory, Israel maintains a trade embargo on Iran. In practice, U.S. growers say, they have repeatedly found evidence of Iranian pistachios finding their way into Israel. Since 1997, when then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright weighed in, U.S. officials have periodically pressed Israel to stop the Iranian shipments.

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Earlier this year, the maneuvering culminated in Israel raising its tariff on non-U.S. pistachios to 23 percent. That tariff, plus an added weight-based duty, effectively rendered the tariff-free U.S. pistachios a better buy than the foreign competition.

Matoian estimated that U.S. pistachio exports to Israel could now increase to as much as $20 million a year, compared to the $300,000 worth exported last year.

"We appreciate the warm relations we have with the United States," Yakov Poles, agricultural attache for the Israeli Embassy, said. "Since this issue was raised by pistachio growers in California, we took it very seriously."

Some well-placed friends helped, too.

In April, for instance, a State Department telegram directed U.S. Ambassador Richard H. Jones to convey to Israeli officials that "reports of Iranian pistachios entering Israel are attracting increased attention in the U.S. Congress and media, and are a source of embarrassment to our governments."

The congressional and media attention, in turn, arose partly through the work of the Western Pistachio Association's D.C. lobbying firm, Schramm, Williams & Associates. The pistachio trade organization paid the firm about $50,000 last year, lobbying records show.

The connections thickened in October, when Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., hosted a fundraising event in Clovis, Calif. His guest was Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. Berman chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on which Costa sits, and he is sympathetic to Israeli concerns.

This was opportunity knocking, for the pistachio growers. The Western Pistachio Association Political Action Committee, which shares D.C. office space with the Schramm, Williams & Associates lobbying firm, made a $2,300 contribution to Costa that day. Matoian and two members of his board of directors, Michael Woolf and Jim Zion, attended the Costa fundraiser, with an eye toward meeting Berman.

"We were able to pull him aside for about 10 minutes," Matoian said.

A second meeting followed, by teleconference, with Berman pledging to bring the pistachio issue up with top Israeli officials. The involvement of the foreign affairs chairman was key, Matoian said.

Matoian acknowledged that Israel's raising of all pistachio tariffs to solve a problem attributed strictly to Iranian imports was an "indirect" solution. Diplomatically, though, it may have proven easier than explicitly confronting anything involving Iran.

"The congressman is happy," said Costa's press secretary, Bret Rumbeck. "This is good for our growers, and it's good for the Valley."

This entry was posted on Mar 24, 2009 at 06:55:45 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, who has filed a formal demand for an official investigation, said that of some 120 criminal investigations brought against security force members since the beginning of the intifada, there had only been one conviction – against the Arab-Israeli soldier who shot British peace activist Tom Hurndall dead in Gaza.

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

The parents of an American peace activist publicly appealed yesterday for a full investigation into how their son was shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas canister by Israeli security forces.

Tristan Anderson, 38, remains in critical condition after three brain operations at Tel Hashomer hospital in Israel, as a result of the shooting which came at the end of a regular joint Arab-Jewish demonstration against the Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank village of Ni'lin.

Activists say the canister round – with a range of more than 400 metres – was fired directly at Mr Anderson from about 60 metres as he was standing with three or four other activists in the centre of the village. They say he was well away from the barrier where the main protest had taken place earlier on 13 March.

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Mr. Anderson suffered a multiple fracture to his skull, severe injury to the frontal lobe of his brain, and a collapsed eye socket

The peace activists insist that neither Mr Anderson, nor his immediate companions, were throwing stones or posing any threat to the forces.

Mr Anderson's mother. Nancy, who flew from California with her husband Michael to be at her son's bedside, said yesterday that to fire at peace protesters was "really horrifying".

She said that tear gas canisters are designed to be fired in an arc to disperse demonstrators, but that the canister had been "shot right at his head".

"We want the Israeli government to publicly take full responsibility for the shooting of our son," she said.

"I don't carry any negative feelings towards the soldier who shot our son. All I feel is love for Tristan and fear for his recovery."

Mrs Anderson praised the "excellent" care by medics at Tel Hashomer.

Mr Anderson, who had a seasonal job in Oakland California working for a trade union setting up conventions, was in Israel for the first time.

He was with his Jewish girlfriend on a three-month trip, after which he intended to join his parents on a holiday in Europe. He had taken part in peace demonstrations in Iraq before the US invasion in 2003, and in El Salvador and Guatemala.

"He came to understand for himself what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about," said Michael Anderson, his father. "It is ironic that the country in which he was shot is a democracy where it is supposed to be a duty for everyone to follow their conscience.

"We want to know what happened and we want justice for our son."

Jonathan Pollack, an activist with the Israeli "Anarchists against the Wall" organisation said the incident had taken place about one kilometre from the barrier after demonstrators had started to disperse. While stones had been thrown earlier during the protest, Mr Pollack, who first met Mr Anderson at a demonstration in Prague during the World Bank-IMF conference in 2000, said: "I have known Tristan for nine years and I know he was not throwing stones at that point or any other point."

The activists say the gas canister, of a kind brought into service only four months ago, was labelled in Hebrew "40mm bullet special/long range."

Four Palestinian residents of Ni'lin – including a 10-year-old boy – were killed during demonstrations last year against the barrier, which will divide villagers from 400 acres of their farmland, when it is complete.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, who has filed a formal demand for an official investigation, said that of some 120 criminal investigations brought against security force members since the beginning of the intifada, there had only been one conviction – against the Arab-Israeli soldier who shot British peace activist Tom Hurndall dead in Gaza.

Nobody was brought to trial in two other cases involving the deaths of foreign nationals. They were Rachel Corrie, who like Mr Hurndall was an International Solidarity Movement volunteer. The Israeli military has not accepted responsibility for her death. In the case of British film-maker James Miller, Israeli authorities made a substantial cash payment to his family this year, which came nearly six years after his death.

The Israeli military said that on the day Mr Anderson was shot, some 400 rioters, “some masked”, had thrown “a massive number of rocks” at their forces. They said protesters had thrown firebombs, and directed burning tyres towards the forces, and that 73 personnel were injured in 2008 at or near Ni’lin. A spokesman said: “The violent acts of the protesters force Israeli police officers and soldiers to use internationally acceptable riot dispersal means.”

This entry was posted on Mar 24, 2009 at 02:04:42 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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Army specialist Terry Holdbrooks had been a guard at Guantánamo for about six months the night he had his life-altering conversation with detainee 590, a Moroccan also known as "the General." This was early 2004, about halfway through Holdbrooks's stint at Guantánamo with the 463rd Military Police Company. Until then, he'd spent most of his day shifts just doing his duty. He'd escort prisoners to interrogations or walk up and down the cellblock making sure they weren't passing notes. But the midnight shifts were slow. "The only thing you really had to do was mop the center floor," he says. So Holdbrooks began spending part of the night sitting cross-legged on the ground, talking to detainees through the metal mesh of their cell doors.

He developed a strong relationship with the General, whose real name is Ahmed Errachidi. Their late-night conversations led Holdbrooks to be more skeptical about the prison, he says, and made him think harder about his own life. Soon, Holdbrooks was ordering books on Arabic and Islam. During an evening talk with Errachidi in early 2004, the conversation turned to the shahada, the one-line statement of faith that marks the single requirement for converting to Islam ("There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet"). Holdbrooks pushed a pen and an index card through the mesh, and asked Errachidi to write out the shahada in English and transliterated Arabic. He then uttered the words aloud and, there on the floor of Guantánamo's Camp Delta, became a Muslim.

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When historians look back on Guantánamo, the harsh treatment of detainees and the trampling of due process will likely dominate the narrative. Holdbrooks, who left the military in 2005, saw his share. In interviews over recent weeks, he and another former guard told NEWSWEEK about degrading and sometimes sadistic acts against prisoners committed by soldiers, medics and interrogators who wanted revenge for the 9/11 attacks on America. But as the fog of secrecy slowly lifts from Guantánamo, other scenes are starting to emerge as well, including surprising interactions between guards and detainees on subjects like politics, religion and even music. The exchanges reveal curiosity on both sides—sometimes even empathy. "The detainees used to have conversations with the guards who showed some common respect toward them," says Errachidi, who spent five years in Guantánamo and was released in 2007. "We talked about everything, normal things, and things [we had] in common," he wrote to NEWSWEEK in an e-mail from his home in Morocco.

Holdbrooks's level of identification with the other side was exceptional. No other guard has volunteered that he embraced Islam at the prison (though Errachidi says others expressed interest). His experience runs counter to academic studies, which show that guards and inmates at ordinary prisons tend to develop mutual hostility. But then, Holdbrooks is a contrarian by nature. He can also be conspiratorial. When his company visited the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Holdbrooks remembers thinking there had to be a broader explanation, and that the Bush administration must have colluded somehow in the plot.

But his misgivings about Guantánamo—including doubts that the detainees were the "worst of the worst"—were shared by other guards as early as 2002. A few such guards are coming forward for the first time. Specialist Brandon Neely, who was at Guantánamo when the first detainees arrived that year, says his enthusiasm for the mission soured quickly. "There were a couple of us guards who asked ourselves why these guys are being treated so badly and if they're actually terrorists at all," he told NEWSWEEK. Neely remembers having long conversations with detainee Ruhal Ahmed, who loved Eminem and James Bond and would often rap or sing to the other prisoners. Another former guard, Christopher Arendt, went on a speaking tour with former detainees in Europe earlier this year to talk critically about the prison.

Holdbrooks says growing up hard in Phoenix—his parents were junkies and he himself was a heavy drinker before joining the military in 2002—helps explain what he calls his "anti-everything views." He has holes the size of quarters in both earlobes, stretched-out piercings that he plugs with wooden discs. At his Phoenix apartment, bedecked with horror-film memorabilia, he rolls up both sleeves to reveal wrist-to-shoulder tattoos. He describes the ink work as a narrative of his mistakes and addictions. They include religious symbols and Nazi SS bolts, track marks and, in large letters, the words BY DEMONS BE DRIVEN. He says the line, from a heavy-metal song, reminds him to be a better person.

Holdbrooks—TJ to his friends—says he joined the military to avoid winding up like his parents. He was an impulsive young man searching for stability. On his first home leave, he got engaged to a woman he'd known for just eight days and married her three months later. With little prior exposure to religion, Holdbrooks was struck at Gitmo by the devotion detainees showed to their faith. "A lot of Americans have abandoned God, but even in this place, [the detainees] were determined to pray," he says.

Holdbrooks was also taken by the prisoners' resourcefulness. He says detainees would pluck individual threads from their jumpsuits or prayer mats and spin them into long stretches of twine, which they would use to pass notes from cell to cell. He noticed that one detainee with a bad skin rash would smear peanut butter on his windowsill until the oil separated from the paste, then would use the oil on his rash.

Errachidi's detention seemed particularly suspect to Holdbrooks. The Moroccan detainee had worked as a chef in Britain for almost 18 years and spoke fluent English. He told Holdbrooks he had traveled to Pakistan on a business venture in late September 2001 to help pay for his son's surgery. When he crossed into Afghanistan, he said, he was picked up by the Northern Alliance and sold to American troops for $5,000. At Guantánamo, Errachidi was accused of attending a Qaeda training camp. But a 2007 investigation by the London Times newspaper appears to have corroborated his story; it eventually helped lead to his release.

In prison, Errachidi was an agitator. "Because I spoke English, I was always in the face of the soldiers," he wrote NEWSWEEK in an e-mail. Errachidi said an American colonel at Guantánamo gave him his nickname, and warned him that generals "get hurt" if they don't cooperate. He said his defiance cost him 23 days of abuse, including sleep deprivation, exposure to very cold temperatures and being shackled in stress positions. "I always believed the soldiers were doing illegal stuff and I was not ready to keep quiet." (Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said in response: "Detainees have often made claims of abuse that are simply not supported by the facts.") The Moroccan spent four of his five years at Gitmo in the punishment block, where detainees were denied "comfort items" like paper and prayer beads along with access to the recreation yard and the library.

Errachidi says he does not remember details of the night Holdbrooks converted. Over the years, he says, he discussed a range of religious topics with guards: "I spoke to them about subjects like Father Christmas and Ishac and Ibrahim [Isaac and Abraham] and the sacrifice. About Jesus." Holdbrooks recalls that when he announced he wanted to embrace Islam, Errachidi warned him that converting would be a serious undertaking and, at Guantánamo, a messy affair. "He wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into." Holdbrooks later told his two roommates about the conversion, and no one else.

But other guards noticed changes in him. They heard detainees calling him Mustapha, and saw that Holdbrooks was studying Arabic openly. (At his Phoenix apartment, he displays the books he had amassed. They include a leather-bound, six-volume set of Muslim sacred texts and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam.") One night his squad leader took him to a yard behind his living quarters, where five guards were waiting to stage a kind of intervention. "They started yelling at me," he recalls, "asking if I was a traitor, if I was switching sides." At one point a squad leader pulled back his fist and the two men traded blows, Holdbrooks says.

Holdbrooks spent the rest of his time at Guantánamo mainly keeping to himself, and nobody bothered him further. Another Muslim who served there around the same time had a different experience. Capt. James Yee, a Gitmo chaplain for much of 2003, was arrested in September of that year on suspicion of aiding the enemy and other crimes—charges that were eventually dropped. Yee had become a Muslim years earlier. He says the Muslims on staff at Gitmo—mainly translators—often felt beleaguered. "There was an overall atmosphere by the command to vilify Islam." (Commander Gordon's response: "We strongly disagree with the assertions made by Chaplain Yee").

At Holdbrooks's next station, in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., he says things began to unravel. The only place to kill time within miles of the base was a Wal-Mart and two strip clubs—Big Daddy's and Big Louie's. "I've never been a fan of strip clubs, so I hung out at Wal-Mart," he says. Within months, Holdbrooks was released from the military—two years before the end of his commitment. The Army gave him an honorable discharge with no explanation, but the events at Gitmo seemed to loom over the decision. The Army said it would not comment on the matter.

Back in Phoenix, Holdbrooks returned to drinking, in part to suppress what he describes as the anger that consumed him. (Neely, the other ex-guard who spoke to NEWSWEEK, said Guantánamo had made him so depressed he spent up to $60 a day on alcohol during a monthlong leave from the detention center in 2002.) Holdbrooks divorced his wife and spiraled further. Eventually his addictions landed him in the hospital. He suffered a series of seizures, as well as a fall that resulted in a bad skull fracture and the insertion of a titanium plate in his head.

Recently, Holdbrooks has been back in touch with Errachidi, who has suffered his own ordeal since leaving the detention center. Errachidi told NEWSWEEK he had trouble adjusting to his freedom, "trying to learn how to walk without shackles and trying to sleep at night with the lights off." He signed each of the dozen e-mails he sent to NEWSWEEK with the impersonal ID that his captors had given him: Ahmed 590.

Holdbrooks, now 25, says he quit drinking three months ago and began attending regular prayers at the Tempe Islamic Center, a mosque near the University of Phoenix, where he works as an enrollment counselor. The long scar on his head is now mostly hidden under the lace of his Muslim kufi cap. When the imam at Tempe introduced Holdbrooks to the congregation and explained he'd converted at Guantánamo, a few dozen worshipers rushed over to shake his hand. "I would have thought they had the most savage soldiers serving there," says the imam, Amr Elsamny, an Egyptian. "I never thought it would be someone like TJ."

This entry was posted on Mar 24, 2009 at 09:04:06 am and is filed under Religion.
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London will not push through changes in legislation that permits the arrest of Israel Defense Forces officers visiting Britain on war crimes, as previously promised, Jerusalem has learned.

In an unofficial message to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Britain said that as a result of the decline in Israel's public image following Operation Cast Lead the government believes it will be unable to pass the amendment to the legislation before next year's scheduled elections.

British law permits private citizens to press charges against foreigners on war crimes charges. Once an indictment has been issued suspects can be arrested if they enter Britain.

In 2005 Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog flew to London for a brief visit. After being informed, while still on the plane, that police were waiting for him to disembark so that they could arrest him, Almog remained on the aircraft and returned to Israel.

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An arrest warrant had been issued against him for his alleged role in the razing of Palestinian homes in Rafah during his service as GOC Southern Command.

Since that incident, senior IDF officers in both active and reserve service, including former IDF chiefs of staff and cabinet ministers (Ehud Barak and Shaul Mofaz), have avoided traveling to Britain.

Britain's Labor government, first under Tony Blair and recently under Gordon Brown, had promised to pass changes in the legislation so that private citizens seeking to press war crimes charges would first have to obtain the approval of the chief prosecutor.

Israeli diplomats, meanwhile, sought support for such an amendment from Conservative MPs.

"The British did make such a promise and we continue to expect that they will find a way to fulfill it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Saturday.

The British Foreign Office said in a statement, "We recognize Israeli concerns but this is a complex legal issue."

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It is not really so important to point out that Obama's closest advisers are Jewish, such as his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, his veepee's chief of staff Ron Klain, senior advisor David Axelrod, and his domestic cabinet members Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Paul Volker, Peter Orszag, and Jason Furman and Jamie Rubin. It is more to the point to emphasize that they are Zionists one and all, including his WASP veepee Joseph Biden ("You don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist") and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

By Eric Walberg

The remarkable hegemony of Zionists in US continues unabated, as demonstrated starkly by the withdrawal of Chas Freeman as United States President Barack Obama's nominee to chair his National Intelligence Council (NIC).

Unlike cabinet positions, the NIC chair is not subject to Senate approval, but when Freeman was subjected to a campaign of slander led by AIPAC functionary Steve Rosen, joined by a chorus of senators, Freeman withdrew, relating in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the "libelous distortions of my record," the "efforts to smear me and destroy my credibility . . . by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country."

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Jews have more of a tradition of being liberals and supporting Democrats. But nowadays, more important than shades of pink are the Zionist colors one flaunts, and no US politician, left or right, dares to buck the Zionist tide. Whether or not Freeman — or any other US public figure — is Jewish is now a moot point. So it is not really so important to point out that Obama's closest advisers are Jewish, such as his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, his veepee's chief of staff Ron Klain, senior advisor David Axelrod, and his domestic cabinet members Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Paul Volker, Peter Orszag, and Jason Furman and Jamie Rubin. It is more to the point to emphasize that they are Zionists one and all, including his WASP veepee Joseph Biden ("You don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist") and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The waning of Jewish liberalism and the growing irrelevance of tribal affinity in American politics began with the rise of the neocons under president Ronald Reagan and is reflected in Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman's endorsement of Republican John McCain for president in 2008. That Lieberman was not expelled, and managed to retain his chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee, shows who's in control.

Zionists are the essential second leg that Obama stands on, along with his imperial support. As Democratic Caucus chairman, Emanuel helped make sure that 60 percent of Democratic congressmen and virtually all the senators will continue to support the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, with the possibility of an attack on Iran still on the table, despite that fact that 60 percent of Americans (80 percent of Democrats) are against such policies. Emanuel served in the IDF during the 1990 Gulf war, which would have resulted in his arrest and the end of his political career if he had been involved in any other country's war as a foreign soldier. His father was a member of the terrorist organization Irgun and no doubt murdered dozens of Palestinians fighting to protect their homeland. "Rahm-bo" also knocked on doors for AIPAC as a student in the 1980s in AIPAC's successful effort to unseat former Republican congressman Paul Findley just because he was for balance in US Middle East policy.

Ironically, Zionism has become a bit of a dirty word around Washington, and the Jewish press prefers to brag — in the words of former president Clinton counsel Abner Mikvner — that "Barack Obama is the first Jewish President." Whatever epithetic is used, Israeli political leaders, too, brag about their clout at the highest levels of US politics. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert crowed about his telephone call to president George W Bush in January 2009 — interrupting him in the middle of a speech — to insist that secretary of state Condoleezza Rice vote against her own Gaza ceasefire motion in the UN Security Council. Jewish chutzpah celebrates the November 2008 US elections, where more Jews were elected than ever — 10 percent of congressmen, four times their proportion in the population. This leaves aside the fact that more than 90 percent of congressmen and senators vote for all motions concerning Israel that are approved, if not formulated, by AIPAC.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, inspired by the Zionists and their stranglehold on politics and media, have led to mounting frustration, allowing occasional, if carefully modulated criticism to trickle down into the mainstream media. Time columnist Joe Klein, who supported Bush's war against Iraq and considers himself "a strong supporter of Israel," wrote (in a lowly blog) that the "fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives — people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd at Commentary — plumped for this war [in Iraq], and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties." Within a day, Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, accused Klein of espousing "age-old anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate government."

Other brave souls include Norm Finkelstein, author of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Jimmy Carter (Palestine: Peace not Apartheid), Mearsheimer and Walt (The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy). Whether or not their efforts mark the beginning of a decline in the Zionists' hegemony is yet to be seen.

That their power is still formidable was brought home by the Freeman debacle. "The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views," writes Freeman.

The Zionists made no mention of the real reason for scuttling his nomination, instead inventing the charge that he was a lobbyist for Saudi and Chinese interests. A career diplomat, he was president Richard Nixon's personal interpreter during the first meetings with Mao Tse Tung. Since 1997, he has presided over the Middle East Policy Council, a nonprofit organization that is partly funded by Saudi money. "There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments . . . by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government — in this case, the government of Israel . . . policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel."

Fighting the Zionists is not easy. Jewish scholars like Finkelstein argue that Zionists generally refuse to answer the content of critiques of Israel , invariably reducing the argument to an ad hominem attack, questioning the legitimacy of the critic, as they did with Freeman. Finkelstein was personally the target of their wrath, losing his university tenure battle due to their protests that he was too impartial. Where ad hominem is not enough, they merely ignore valid criticisms and rely on control of the public discourse, including laws forbidding anti-Semitism, racism or slander, to bury the issue.

Dozens of Jewish and overtly Zionist lobby groups throughout the US monitor all school and university teaching content, regularly denouncing critics and lobbying for their dismissal. As part of the campaign to vilify Islam, David Horowitz organized "Islamofascism Awareness Week" (IFAW) on close to a hundred college campuses in October 2007. At Michigan State University, the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom invited a bona fide fascist — Nick Griffin, the head of the British National Party — to speak on how Europe is becoming "Eurabia". IFAW is now an annual event, with seminars on jihad and Islamic totalitarianism.

But there is a silver lining. Formerly schemes to control the discourse took place behind the scenes. Steve Rosen, who led the attack on Freeman, says, "A lobby is like a night flower. It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." That Rosen is now indicted as a spy, that the Finkelstein, Mearsheimer and Carter books even saw the light of day, and that Freeman was able to blast the lobby so witheringly in the WSJ suggest that broader US society may be awakening to the devastation that the Zionists have wrought on America.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002/

This entry was posted on Mar 24, 2009 at 08:38:25 am and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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It has never been easy offering a critique of capitalism or markets to my undergraduate students. Most have never heard an unkind word about these bedrock institutions, which they know to be the foundations of American power and prosperity.

These are hallowed institutions. The power of private capital to produce jobs, wealth and freedom is one of the central dogmas that many Americans absorb with their mother’s milk. To hear this dogma challenged – in any context – is unsettling. I sometimes suspect that this bitter pill is harder to swallow because it emanates from someone who, so transparently, is not a native-born American.

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As the weeks pass, however, my students appear to settle down. In the past, they have been reassured to learn that markets have done a good job at delivering prosperity to a few centers of global capitalism. They do work for us, even if they have not worked for most Asians, Africans and Latin Americans.

Nevertheless, the thesis that ‘free’ markets have rarely worked for economies lagging far behind the economic leaders, does not quite take root. The fault could not lie with markets. For too long, the West has believed that Asians, Africans and Latin Americans failed because they were lazy, spendthrift, venal and unimaginative.

My students – like most Americans – have been conditioned to look at capitalism from the standpoint of the winners in global capitalism. Because of the accident of birth, they have been the beneficiaries of the wealth and power that global capitalism concentrates at the nodes of the system. They cannot conceive how a system that has worked so well for them could produce misery for others in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

I have been away from my teaching duties as the United States has led the world into a deepening recession. Within a few months, the titans of Wall Street have been laid low, rescued from extinction by tax-financed bailouts. Teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the auto giants have been placed on life-support also by taxpayers, their future still uncertain. In this maelstrom, there steps forward Bernard L. Madoff, the Einstein of Ponzi schemes, who operated his colossal con for twenty years without notice from regulators.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs; millions are threatened with loss of their homes; millions have seen their retirement funds melt before their eyes; millions are threatened with loss of health care. As Americans on Main Street were being devastated, executives of bailed out banks continued to receive millions in bonuses. That straw now threatens to break the back of the fabled American tolerance for the foibles of the capitalist system.

Ordinarily, American democracy directs its venom against writers and activists on the left, foolish enough to want to defend the underprivileged. For a change, Americans are threatening captains of finance, venerable bankers, with dire consequences – even death threats.

I was on sabbatical when Al-Qaida brought down the Twin Towers on September 11. Then, I was relieved to be away from my students, afraid that some of them might want to lump me with those who had perpetrated these attacks.

I am on sabbatical, again, as the towers on Wall Street were being toppled by greed, recklessness and fraud; by a free-market ideology that has no regard for human life; by capitalist elites and their partners in the White House and Congress, who had turned the financial sector into a giant Ponzi scheme.

Americans have been subjected to acts of ‘terrorism’ whose final human toll will make September 11 look like a tea party. The perpetrators of this terror are all homegrown; they were trained not in the mountains of Afghanistan but at Harvard, Yale and Stanford; the bankers, executives and legislators who preyed on Americans are the crème de la crème of American society.

When I return to teach in Fall of this year, I expect to meet students chastened by their experience. Nothing undermines capitalist ideologies faster and more effectively than capitalist crises. No critique of capitalism can be more penetrating than the depredations of unemployment, immiseration, homelessness that it inflicts on its victims. So recently victimized – at the very center of global capitalism – perhaps, Americans might learn to empathize with victims elsewhere – in Africa, Asia and Latin America – who have been ravaged by this system for centuries.

Capitalist ideologues will be working overtime to deflect American anger away from the system to a few villains, to a few rotten apples. Congressional hearings will identify scapegoats; they will hang a few ‘witches.’ A few capitalist barons will be sacrificed. As public anger subsides, attempts will be made to shift the blame to feckless homebuyers and compulsive consumers. At all costs, the system must be saved. The capitalist show must go on, with as little change as possible.

Quite apart from this crisis, however, new technologies, in combination with the irreversible shift of sovereignty to some segments of the capitalist periphery, have been changing the dynamics of unequal development. The high-wage workers – the so-called middle classes in the developed countries – have been losing the protection they have long enjoyed against competition from low-wage workers in China and India.

More and more global capitalism will enrich some workers in the ‘periphery’ at the cost of workers in the ‘centers’ of capitalism. In the years ahead, the great alliance that was forged between capitalists and workers in the centers of capitalism will come under greater strain. More and more, the interests of these two classes will diverge.

Powerful corporations will still insist on openness, while growing ranks of workers will press for protectionism. This revival of class conflict in the old capitalist centers will strain existing political arrangements. After a co-optation that has lasted for more than a century, the demos will begin to threaten the corporate elites. New demands will be placed on intellectual mercenaries in the media and academia to use new, more effective tools to dumb down the demos.

As growing segments of high-wage workers in the rich countries become the new victims of capitalism, will they slowly learn to see capitalism from the standpoint of its victims? In this new emerging reality, will orthodox economics migrate from its old centers in London, Cambridge and Chicago to new centers in Bangalore and Beijing?

A curious world this will be when seen from the old centers. In truth, this will only be a long-delayed correction to two centuries of unequal development, dominated by Western centers. Sadly, the correction will not go far enough: it will leave much of the world mired in poverty and disease.

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. This essay is excerpted from his forthcoming book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan: November 2009).He is author of Challenging the New Orientalism (2007). Send comments to alqalam02760@yahoo.com.

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Thousands of homes in Gaza were destroyed or damaged during the Israeli offensive

A senior UN official has suggested that Israel could be guilty of a "new crime against humanity" during its January assault on the Gaza strip.

Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel had confined Palestinian civilians to the combat zone in Gaza, a unique move which should be outlawed.

"Such a war policy should be treated as a distinct and new crime against humanity, and should be formally recognised as such, and explicitly prohibited," Falk said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

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Palestinian civilians were prevented from leaving the Gaza Strip during the three-week bombardment by the Israeli authorities.

Falk also called for an investigation into Israel's attack on Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed and homes destroyed.

Israel said it carried out the assault to stop Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel.

Report condemned

Falk's comments formed part of a much longer report from nine UN investigators including specialists on the right to health, food, adequate housing and education, as well as on summary executions and violence against women.

"We've found the rapporteur's views to be anything but fair. We find them to be biased. We've made that very clear" -- Robert Wood, US state department spokesman

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN secretary-general's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, accused Israeli forces of using a child as a human shield in one incident.

Soldiers forced an 11-year-old boy to walk in front of them for several hours as they moved through the town of Tal al-Hawa on January 15, even after they had been shot at, her report said.

Aharon Leshno Yar, Israel's ambassador to the UN rights council, condemned the report, saying it "wilfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face", and the alleged use by Palestinian fighters of human shields.

The US accused Falk of being biased.

"We've found the rapporteur's views to be anything but fair. We find them to be biased. We've made that very clear," Robert Wood, a US state department spokesman, told a media briefing on Monday.

'War crime'

Falk called for the probe to assess if the Israeli forces could differentiate between civilian and military targets in Gaza.

"If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful, and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law," Falk said in the report.

"On the basis of the preliminary evidence available, there is reason to reach this conclusion," he added, saying that attacks occurred in densely populated areas.

Falk, who has been critical of Israel in the past, was expelled from Israel during an attempt to visit Gaza in December, after he said Israel's policies on the territory amounted to a crime against humanity.

This entry was posted on Mar 23, 2009 at 09:32:21 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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Charles Freeman might have survived this onslaught (by AIPAC) had the White House stood by him. But Barack Obama’s pandering to the Israel lobby during the campaign and his silence during the Gaza War show that this is one opponent he is not willing to challenge. True to form, he remained silent and Freeman had little choice but to withdraw.

March 26, 2009

John Mearsheimer

Many people in Washington were surprised when the Obama administration tapped Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council, the body that oversees the production of National Intelligence Estimates: Freeman had a distinguished 30-year career as a diplomat and Defense Department official, but he has publicly criticised Israeli policy and America’s special relationship with Israel, saying, for example, in a speech in 2005, that ‘as long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected.’ Words like these are rarely spoken in public in Washington, and anyone who does use them is almost certain not to get a high-level government position. But Admiral Dennis Blair, the new director of national intelligence, greatly admires Freeman: just the sort of person, he thought, to revitalise the intelligence community, which had been very politicised in the Bush years.

Predictably alarmed, the Israel lobby launched a smear campaign against Freeman, hoping that he would either quit or be fired by Obama. The opening salvo came in a blog posting by Steven Rosen, a former official of Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, now under indictment for passing secrets to Israel. Freeman’s views of the Middle East, he said, ‘are what you would expect in the Saudi Foreign Ministry, with which he maintains an extremely close relationship’. Prominent pro-Israel journalists such as Jonathan Chait and Martin Peretz of the New Republic, and Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, quickly joined the fray and Freeman was hammered in publications that consistently defend Israel, such as the National Review, the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard.

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The real heat, however, came from Congress, where Aipac (which describes itself as ‘America’s Pro-Israel Lobby’) wields enormous power. All the Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee came out against Freeman, as did key Senate Democrats such as Joseph Lieberman and Charles Schumer. ‘I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him,’ Schumer said, ‘and I am glad they did the right thing.’ It was the same story in the House, where the charge was led by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Steve Israel, who pushed Blair to initiate a formal investigation of Freeman’s finances. In the end, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, declared the Freeman appointment ‘beyond the pale’. Freeman might have survived this onslaught had the White House stood by him. But Barack Obama’s pandering to the Israel lobby during the campaign and his silence during the Gaza War show that this is one opponent he is not willing to challenge. True to form, he remained silent and Freeman had little choice but to withdraw.

The lobby has since gone to great lengths to deny its role in Freeman’s resignation. The Aipac spokesman Josh Block said his organisation ‘took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it’. The Washington Post, whose editorial page is run by Fred Hiatt, a man staunchly committed to the special relationship, ran an editorial which claimed that blaming the lobby for Freeman’s resignation was something dreamed up by ‘Mr Freeman and like-minded conspiracy theorists’.

In fact, there is abundant evidence that Aipac and other hardline supporters of Israel were deeply involved in the campaign. Block admitted that he had spoken to reporters and bloggers about Freeman and provided them with information, always on the understanding that his comments would not be attributed to him or to Aipac. Jonathan Chait, who denied that Israel was at the root of the controversy before Freeman was toppled, wrote afterwards: ‘Of course I recognise that the Israel lobby is powerful and was a key element in the pushback against Freeman, and that it is not always a force for good.’ Daniel Pipes, who runs the Middle East Forum, where Steven Rosen now works, quickly sent out an email newsletter boasting about Rosen’s role in bringing Freeman down.

On 12 March, the day the Washington Post ran its editorial railing against anyone who suggested that the Israel lobby had helped topple Freeman, the paper also published a front-page story describing the central role that the lobby had played in the affair. There was also a comment piece by the veteran journalist David Broder, which opened with the words: ‘The Obama administration has just suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the lobbyists the president vowed to keep in their place.’

Freeman’s critics maintain that his views on Israel were not his only problem. He is said to have especially close – maybe even improper – ties to Saudi Arabia, where he previously served as American ambassador. The charge hasn’t stuck, however, because there is no evidence for it. Israel’s supporters also said that he had made insensitive remarks about what happened to the Chinese protesters at Tiananmen Square, but that charge, which his defenders contest, only came up because Freeman’s pro-Israel critics were looking for any argument they could muster to damage his reputation.

Why does the lobby care so much about one appointment to an important, but not top leadership position? Here’s one reason: Freeman would have been responsible for the production of National Intelligence Estimates. Israel and its American supporters were outraged when the National Intelligence Council concluded in November 2007 that Iran was not building nuclear weapons, and they have worked assiduously to undermine that report ever since. The lobby wants to make sure that the next estimate of Iran’s nuclear capabilities reaches the opposite conclusion, and that would have been much less likely to happen with Freeman in charge. Better to have someone vetted by Aipac running the show.

An even more important reason for the lobby to drive Freeman out of his job is the weakness of the case for America’s present policy towards Israel, which makes it imperative to silence or marginalise anyone who criticises the special relationship. If Freeman hadn’t been punished, others would see that one could talk critically about Israel and still have a successful career in Washington. And once you get an open and free-wheeling discussion about Israel, the special relationship will be in serious trouble.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Freeman affair was that the mainstream media paid it little attention – the New York Times, for example, did not run a single story dealing with Freeman until the day after he stepped down – while a fierce battle over the appointment took place in the blogosphere. Freeman’s opponents used the internet to their advantage; that is where Rosen launched the campaign. But something happened there that would never have happened in the mainstream media: the lobby faced real opposition. Indeed, a vigorous, well-informed and highly regarded array of bloggers defended Freeman at every turn and would probably have carried the day had Congress not tipped the scales against them. In short, the internet enabled a serious debate in the United States about an issue involving Israel. The lobby has never had much trouble keeping the New York Times and the Washington Post in line, but it has few ways to silence critics on the internet.

When pro-Israel forces clashed with a major political figure in the past, that person usually backed off. Jimmy Carter, who was smeared by the lobby after he published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, was the first prominent American to stand his ground and fight back. The lobby has been unable to silence him, and it is not for lack of trying. Freeman is following in Carter’s footsteps, but with sharper elbows. After stepping down, he issued a blistering denunciation of ‘unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country’ whose aim is ‘to prevent any view other than its own from being aired’. ‘There is,’ he continued, ‘a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government.’

Freeman’s remarkable statement has shot all around the world and been read by countless individuals. This isn’t good for the lobby, which would have preferred to kill Freeman’s appointment without leaving any fingerprints. But Freeman will continue to speak out about Israel and the lobby, and maybe some of his natural allies inside the Beltway will eventually join him. Slowly but steadily, space is being opened up in the United States to talk honestly about Israel.

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

This entry was posted on Mar 23, 2009 at 07:08:20 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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What shock, what consternation. Haaretz revealed grave accounts by officers and soldiers describing the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians during the war in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman was quick to respond that the IDF had no prior or supporting information about the events in question, the defense minister was quick to respond that "the IDF is the most moral army in the world," and the military advocate general said the IDF would investigate.

All these propagandistic and ridiculous responses are meant not only to deceive the public, but also to offer shameless lies. The IDF knew very well what its soldiers did in Gaza. It has long ceased to be the most moral army in the world. Far from it - it will not seriously investigate anything.

The testimonies from the graduates of the Oranim pre-military course were a bolt from the blue - accounts of soldiers butchering a woman and two of her children, shooting and killing an elderly Palestinian woman, how they felt when they murdered in cold blood, how they destroyed property and how there was not even fighting in this war that was not a war.

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But this is neither a bolt nor blue skies. Everything has long been known by those who wanted to know, those who, for example, read Amira Hass's dispatches from Gaza in this paper. Everything started long before the assault on Gaza.

The soldiers' transgressions are an inevitable result of the orders given during this brutal operation, and they are the natural continuation of the last nine years, when soldiers killed nearly 5,000 Palestinians, at least half of them innocent civilians, nearly 1,000 of them children and teenagers.

Everything the soldiers described from Gaza, everything, occurred during these blood-soaked years as if they were routine events. It was the context, not the principle, that was different. An army whose armored corps has yet to encounter an enemy tank and whose pilots have yet to face an enemy combat jet in 36 years has been trained to think that the only function of a tank is to crush civilian cars and that a pilot's job is to bomb residential neighborhoods.

To do this without any unnecessary moral qualms we have trained our soldiers to think that the lives and property of Palestinians have no value whatsoever. It is part of a process of dehumanization that has endured for dozens of years, the fruits of the occupation.

"That's what is so nice, as it were, about Gaza: You see a person on a road ... and you can just shoot him." This "nice" thing has been around for 40 years. Another soldier talked about a thirst for blood. This thirst has been with us for years. Ask the family of Yasser Tamaizi, a 35-year-old laborer from Idna who was killed by soldiers while bound, and Mahdi Abu Ayash, a 16-year-old boy from Beit Umar who was found in a vegetative state, another victim of recent days, far from the war in Gaza.

Most of the soldiers who took part in the assault on Gaza are youths with morals. Some of them will volunteer for any mission. They will escort an old woman across the street or rescue earthquake victims. But in Gaza, when faced with the inhuman Palestinians, the package will always be suspicious, the brainwashing will be stupefying and the core principles will change. That is the only way they can kill and engage in wanton destruction without deliberating or wrestling with their consciences, not even telling their friends or girlfriends what they did.

Regarding the statement of one soldier, who said "As much as we talk about the IDF being an army of values, let's just say this is not the situation on the ground, not on the battalion level," the IDF has long ceased to be an army of "values," not on the ground, not in the battalion, not in the senior command. When an army does not investigate thousands of cases of killing over many years, the message to the soldiers is clear, and it comes from the top.

Our Teflon chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, cannot wash his hands of this affair. They are bloody. What the soldiers of the preparatory academy described were war crimes, for which they should be tried. This will not happen, save for the grotesque spectacle of "principled probes" in an army that killed 1,300 people in 25 days and left 100,000 homeless. Military police investigations will not lead to anything.

The IDF is incapable of investigating the crimes of its soldiers and commanders, and it is ridiculous to expect it to do so. These are not instances of "errant fire," but of deliberate fire resulting from an order. These are not "a few bad apples," but rather the spirit of the commander, and this spirit has been bad and corrupt for quite some time.

Change will not come without a major change in mindset. Until we recognize the Palestinians as human beings, just as we are, nothing will change. But then, the occupation would collapse, God forbid. In the meantime, prepare for the next war and the horrific testimonies about the most moral army in the world.

This entry was posted on Mar 23, 2009 at 06:56:06 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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NEW YORK – The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is back in court seeking restoration of its federal acknowledgment.

Attorneys for STN filed a brief in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York March 6, asking the appellate court to reverse a federal district court judge’s decision dismissing the tribe’s case against the Interior Department, and to order the interior and the BIA to restore its Final Determination acknowledging STN as a federally recognized tribe.

Alternately, the brief asks for a magistrate judge or special master to determine the tribe’s federal acknowledgement or to remand the issue to the interior for further consideration.

[More:]

The BIA recognized the tribe in a Final Determination Jan. 29, 2004. Twenty months later, after a relentless and coordinated political campaign by Connecticut politicians aided by an anti-Indian sovereignty group and its powerful White House-connected lobbyist, the BIA, in an unprecedented move reversed itself in a Reconsidered Final Determination and took away both the Schaghticoke and Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation’s federal acknowledgment.

The 2nd Circuit Court appeal challenges a decision rendered last August by U.S. District Court Senior Judge Peter Dorsey that denied the tribe’s Administrative Procedures Appeal of the RFD, which was filed in January 2006. That appeal claimed the reversal resulted from unlawful political influence by powerful politicians and Barbour Griffith & Rogers, the lobbying firm now known as BGR, who together violated federal laws, agency regulations, congressional ethics rules and court orders in trampling the tribes’ due process rights. Their sole motivation was to reverse STN’s federal status in order to stop the tribe from opening a casino, the documents say.

Connecticut is home to the country’s two biggest casinos – Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, which contribute around $440 million a year to the state’s general fund. A third casino would invalidate the tribal-state contracts and stop the tribes’ essential contributions to the state budget.

Although the district court appeal stretched over almost three years, culminating in the tribe’s massive 1,300-plus page motion for summary judgment, the 86-page 2nd Circuit brief focuses narrowly on issues of law. It asks: Did the district court err in denying summary judgment for the tribe and granting summary judgment for the federal defendants and interveners on the questions of (a) whether the tribe’s due process rights to a fair administrative hearing was violated by undue political influence, and (b) whether the RFD was made by an unauthorized official?

“If we had gone into the 2nd Circuit with five, six or seven of the many issues, we would have had to explain each issue for the first time for the judges, and we have a limited number of words. So we needed to provide a very clear and concise explanation of what took place over the years and the violations we felt that Judge Dorsey had definitely overlooked, and that’s what we did,” said STN Chief Richard Velky.

“This appeal to the 2nd Circuit isn’t another petition for federal recognition; it’s an appeal of the wrongs done in Dorsey’s court. It focuses on the issue of political influence, which is the core violation of law responsible for the reversal of the tribe’s federal acknowledgment.”

The brief reviews the web of connections and communications between and among state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Congressional Delegation led by Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman and former U.S. Representatives Chris Shays and Nancy Johnson. It describes their lobbying of White House officials and federal agency decision makers, including a meeting at which former Interior Secretary Gale Norton was threatened with the loss of her job unless she reversed the Schaghticoke federal acknowledgment.

The brief documents the sudden interest former Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles took in the Schaghticoke case in early 2005 – an unusual concern for a deputy secretary whose duties do not normally involve federal acknowledgement petitions. Griles’ role in the STN reversal has never been clearly uncovered, but he was closely connected to former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was jailed on charges of corruption and fraud. Griles also served time on charges of obstructing justice in connection with the Abramoff investigation, which uncovered e-mails describing Griles as Abramoff’s “main man” at the interior for getting decisions made that would benefit Abramoff’s Indian clients.

The brief also details three notorious congressional hearings called ostensibly to review the federal recognition process. But the hearings turned into opportunities for the Connecticut politicians to lash out at the BIA and, in an unparalleled act of collective projection, accuse its staff of corruption and political influence for acknowledging STN.

It also recounts that Dodd and Lieberman asked Interior Inspector Earl Devaney to investigate STN’s federal acknowledgement, claiming it was corrupted by political pressure from high paid lobbyists. But when Devaney found “no evidence to support the allegation that lobbyists or representatives of STN directly or indirectly influenced BIA officials to grant federal acknowledgement to STN,” the Connecticut politicians then turned their fury on Devaney, accusing him of white washing the investigation.

Judge Dorsey himself is not let off the hook in the 2nd Circuit Appeal. The brief recounts that Dorsey replied to a letter from Governor Jodi Rell assuring her that he had extended a deadline at the request of the tribe as a legal ploy.

“It reflects a caution intended to avoid a reversal by another court which might buy a due process argument,” Dorsey wrote.

Dorsey did not file the letter with the court clerk’s office or send copies to all the parties involved in the case, as required by law.

The motion also argues that former Associate Deputy James Cason, who issued the reversal, did not have the authority to make that decision because he was not properly nominated by the president and approved by the Senate as required for that level of decision making.

Washington insiders – attorneys practicing Indian law, lobbyists, even people within the Interior Department – all casually acknowledge off the record that STN’s federal acknowledgment was reversed because of political influence, “not to mention just the blatant appearance of political influence,” Velky said.

“There isn’t anyone who’s been next to this case who wouldn’t say that STN was screwed out of its federal acknowledgment. We would hope with the new Obama administration and a new secretary at interior that STN will be given another look. We would simply ask that they now conduct an investigation of what the state did to us – the same kind of investigation they did at the request of Dodd and Lieberman. This should never have had to go to court. It should have been handled in the same way it was handled when we received our positive determination.”

The STN's reversed decision needs to be investigated. In 2004 CT Senator Joe Liberman sent an angry letter to the Department of Interior questioning the "ethics" of James Cason...and then, yes ...guess who reversed the Schaghticoke decision..James Cason. What happened to his ethics Senator Liberman?

The back door meetings with the White House and the connected lobbyists, violating court orders, and the Judge himself writing CT Gov. Rell about the case.

This is a story of a grave injustice.
As one who was close to the Schaghticokes campaign for Federal Recognition, I completely agree that they were done in as a result of political pressure and influence. Some of the same individuals who reversed their recognition, have been indicted for inappropriate and illegal use of their office. That alone should have led to a re-opening of their case!

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement vowed Sunday to stay adherent to the Palestinian constants whose guidelines were drawn by the blood of late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, highlighting that it would never renounce its right to resist the occupation and defend the Palestinian people until the liberation of all Palestinian lands.

In a statement issued on the fifth anniversary of martyrdom of Sheikh Yassin and a copy of which was received by the PIC, Hamas said that the assassination of its spiritual leader was a spark that ignited the spirit of resistance among the Arab and Muslim nation and moved forward the wheel of history in favor of the Palestinian people.

[More:]

Hamas warned the Israeli government of persisting in judaizing occupied Jerusalem, desecrating the sanctity of Islamic holy places and evicting the Palestinian people from their lands and homes, saying that its attempt to impose a fait accompli in Jerusalem would not be met with long silence.

Hamas also held Israel fully responsible for its terrorist actions against the Palestinian prisoners in its jails and any consequent uprisings that might happen inside prisons, calling on the Israeli government to comply with the Palestinian resistance's demands regarding the prisoner swap deal.

This entry was posted on Mar 22, 2009 at 08:05:29 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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'A third Intifada .. could provide the platform for the Palestinians to reclaim their unity.'

By Ramzy Baroud

Though the dust has settled in Gaza, the rubble from the untold number of demolished buildings, homes and mosques is far from being cleared away. Graves continue to receive victims, young and old alike, from Israel's most recent offensive. And in the midst of this, with the hopes of some respite and recovery on the horizon, rumors of a third Intifada swell among politicians, scholars and everyday people alike.

[A] third Intifada, in the eyes of many, could accomplish one vital task. It could provide the platform for the Palestinians to reclaim their unity (despite the prevailing factionalism of today) and declare that they will struggle until the day when they finally embrace freedom. If this is all that a third Intifada accomplishes, in the eyes of many Palestinians, then it is certainly a necessary and worthy endeavor.

[More:]

While the first and second Palestinian uprisings were spontaneous and natural responses to institutionalized injustice, and while they fostered a great sense of community and brotherhood among Palestinians everywhere, the many years of uprisings mark some of the most painful years in Palestinian history.

It's not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized through a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; it's rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed.

The eruption of both the first and the second Intifadas cannot be faultlessly explained by one individual, for it meant different things to different people. It was a popular and spontaneous retort to the injustice and the humiliation felt on a daily basis by Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. But also, it was a bold declaration made collectively that Palestinians will struggle until freedom is finally achieved.

There are several factors that have led many to believe that a resumption of the uprising, or a third Intifada, is simply the natural response to the current situation on the ground. Mass arrests, unjust imprisonment of people denied the right to a trial and extrajudicial executions are some of the many cruelties imposed on Palestinians that have pressed them to revolt or reignited their ongoing rebellion.

But some of the most contentious issues throughout the years have been the crimes of house demolitions, settlement construction in the Occupied Territories and the increasing number of settlers moving into those ever-growing settlements.

In a recent interview with Ma'an news agency, the Palestinian Authority's governor to Jerusalem warned that the planned demolition of 100 Palestinian homes and the displacement of nearly 1,000 people in the occupied Jerusalem area would certainly increase the growing possibility of a third Intifada. "It is now clear to the international community, and our position within the Palestinian Authority is very clear - no negotiations, no peace process with settlements," he stressed.

There is a great fear that the Israeli plan, which some have described as "slow-motion ethnic cleansing", is now augmenting into a fast-paced settlement project. These worries have been confirmed by the Israeli "Peace Now" movement, in a press release, issued on March 2.

"The Ministry of Construction and Housing is planning to construct at least 73,300 housing units in the West Bank," Peace Now reported. It further stated that the plans outlined in the Israeli Ministry of Housing report "represent only a small part of the total number of the plans existing in the settlements".

"At least 15,000 housing units have already been approved and plans for an additional 58,000 housing units are yet to be approved," said the group, which also concluded that of the units already approved by the Israeli government, nearly 9,000 have been built. "If all the plans are realized, the number of settlers in the territories will be doubled."

It follows that the construction of thousands of units will lead to permanent demographic realities in the West Bank that would strongly impede any possibility of Palestinian statehood, according to the standard "vision" of a two-state solution.

The new illegal units are built on stolen land, illegally confiscated from their rightful Palestinian owners. With such a move, Israel purposely renders the so-called two-state solution permanently incapacitated, while insisting that a one-state solution is the equivalent to the "annihilation" of the Jewish state. Israel is once again molding the very desperate environment that led to the revolts of 1987 and 2000, at the cost of thousands of lives.

So, what is a nation to do under such circumstances? Can stone throwing, general strikes and boycotting Israeli products deter such a scheme? More, what is the responsibility of the free world in this conflict? Will they sit by, as they did in the recent and tragic attacks on Gaza, and view the crimes from afar? Will they again expect Palestinians to bear down and endure such harsh and cruel realities, or will the onset of yet another popular revolution come as no surprise?

As for two generations of Palestinians who lived through the first and second Intifadas, scribing rebellious graffiti, hurling stones at occupying soldiers and refusing to buy the Israeli products that were imposed on them (while impeding the growth of Palestinian local industry) may not have unshackled a hostage nation.

Indeed, it may not in the future, but a third Intifada, in the eyes of many, could accomplish one vital task. It could provide the platform for the Palestinians to reclaim their unity (despite the prevailing factionalism of today) and declare that they will struggle until the day when they finally embrace freedom. If this is all that a third Intifada accomplishes, in the eyes of many Palestinians, then it is certainly a necessary and worthy endeavor.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

This entry was posted on Mar 22, 2009 at 06:32:51 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
FIELD UPDATE ON GAZA FROM THE HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR

10 – 16 March 2009Situation Overview
The blockade on the Gaza Strip continues in addition to rudimentary rocket fire by Palestinian militants into Israel and air strikes on Gaza by Israeli forces. The tunnels on the Egyptian-Gazan border, which have become an alternative channel for transfer of commodities banned through the officIal Gaza crossings and a source of arms smuggling according to Israeli officials, were attacked by Israeli forces, thus reducing the overall amount of goods entering Gaza.

[More:]

Violent exchanges between Israeli forces and the militants inside
the Gaza Strip reportedly caused six Palestinian injuries, including one child.

The overall levels of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza remain below what is urgently required.

Humanitarian partners in the oPt have continued focusing their advocacy on easing access of goods and personnel into Gaza. A “Framework for the Provision of Humanitarian Assistance in Gaza” document by the Humanitarian Country Team, is intended to serve as a set of “minimum standards” for access of humanitarian goods and personnel.

UNDP report “Inside Gaza - Attitudes and perceptions of the Gaza Strip residents in the aftermath of the Israeli military operations highlights the following:

• 65% of Gazans live below the income poverty line and 37% live in extreme poverty;
• 66% of the unemployed are extremely poor; an increase from 56% prior to the recent Gaza conflict;
• Over 1 million of roughly 1.4 million, or 75% of the Gazan population, feel insecure for one of three reasons: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (42%); Israeli control over borders (27%) which
prevents movement of persons and goods; and inter-Palestinian tension;
• Most households in the Gaza Strip have suffered from limited access to basics such as food, water, electricity, sanitation, and money, but their highest need now is personal security;
• Nearly 40% of the surveyed households were displaced as a result of Israeli military operations;
• 25% of the Gaza households believe that psychosocial support is the most needed assistance and 49% consider that psychosocial support is by far the most important need for children at present.

The survey for the report was conducted between 25 January and 1 February 2009, using random sampling of 1,815 households in the Gaza Strip.

Access into into the Gaza Strip / Crossings
Commodities Import

A total of 671 truckloads of goods including 121 from humanitarian agencies (18%) were allowed entry into Gaza this week compared to 1080 last week, representing an average of 121 truckloads per open day compared to a daily average of 246 received in the third week of July 2008.

Items banned by the Israeli authorities last week included jam, biscuits and tomato paste, resulting in 498 boxes of USAID cargo and 2,488 boxes of World Vision cargo stopped from delivery to Gaza. According to COGAT, food parcels containing these foodstuffs, as well as tea, sweets and date bars, will be rejected in the future.

Fuel

No petrol or diesel were allowed entry into Gaza last week via Israel. However, Palestinian Gas Stations Owners Association (GSOA) reports that the amount of fuel being transferred through the Egyptian-Gaza border tunnels has increased with nearly 50,000 litres of diesel and 30,000 litres of petrol transferred into Gaza per day. Since last week, diesel has become more available on the open market while petrol remains less available. Petrol and diesel prices have decreased (down from 8 and 5 NIS/litre to 4 and 3 NIS respectively, compared to the previous week).

675.5 tonnes of cooking gas were allowed into Gaza during this week compared to 420 tonnes • allowed in the previous week, representing 39% of the estimated weekly needs according to GSOA.
A total of 2,235.450 litres of the Power Plants’ industrial gas was allowed, representing 71% of the required weekly needs as determined
by the Power Plant authority.

Crossings Status

Sufa crossing remained closed. However, COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) has informed OCHA that Sufa is no longer a crossing point between Gaza and Israel.
Karni crossing remained closed.

Karni grain conveyor belt was operational on 2 days. The cement lane (last open on 29 October 2008) remains completely closed.
Nahal Oz fuel pipelines were partially opened on 5 out of 6 scheduled days. COGAT informed OCHA that the working days has been reduced to five days per week (Sunday to Thursday.

Kerem Shalom crossing was partially open on all the scheduled days.
Rafah border crossing was closed for cargo on all days.

Information on the status of border crossings and numbers of trucks crossing is compiled by OCHA Gaza, based on data provided by the Gaza Ministry 1. of National Economy, UNRWA, UNSCO and Paltrade (Palestine Trade Centre) and cross-checked with data received from COGAT and covers the period 10 to 16 March.

Exports

No exports from Gaza were allowed out during the week.

Humanitarian personnel access

UN personnel movement into and within Gaza depends, among other factors, on the availability of armored vehicles, numbers of which are severely restricted. Currently, there are 17 vehicles still awaiting the Israeli authorities’ clearance for entry into Israel.

The Israeli clearance procedures for access into Gaza by INGO personnel continue to be very lengthy, hindering INGOs service and delivery capacity.

A number of INGOs operating in Gaza have been requested to register with the de facto Hamas authority in Gaza, often in addition to the registration already obtained from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) is currently conducting a survey on NGOs access to Gaza.

Logistics

The Logistics Cluster continues to advocate for increased entry of humanitarian goods into Gaza. The Logistics Cluster requested a clearance from COGAT for transportation of UNICEF stationery items, Early Childhood Development Kits and children’s toys; UK MAP medical equipment; FAO veterinary supplies and 704 packets of washing powder for World Vision.

The Cluster has presented a number of proposals to the Isreali authorities, namely: to use sea containers for the purpose of transportation of humanitarian cargo and permission for the exit/return of empty containers; to double-stack pallets on trucks and for the installation of lighting at the crossing on the Gaza side of Karem Shalom to allow operations after dark.

The Cluster also maintains a constantly updated list of delivered/held up/refused humanitarian cargo. Information collected includes quantity of items, organization, date of entry, date stopped/delivered etc. The list is available from the Logistics Cluster on request. http://www.logcluster.org/gaza09a/UNJGECC.

Protection

Procedures for Gaza children receiving medical treatment outside the Gaza Strip need urgent attention as the monitoring mechanisms, particularly for unaccompanied children, are inadequate. Another area of concern is the issue of alleged disappearances. Upon finalization of the database of war casualties, the numbers of disappeared versus killed will be clarified. In addition, the Protection Cluster has identified that lengthy delays in legal procedures concerning inheritances of people killed during the war contribute to further deterioration of the economical situation of their families.

Electricity/Fuel

Approximately 90% of the Gaza population suffers from intermittent power supply, with power cuts of between four and five hours daily. The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company reports an overall energy deficit of 19% in the Gaza Strip as of 15 March. On Monday 16 March, due to technical failure, the Gaza Power Plant has been forced to shut one turbine, bringing power generation to 30MWs. Gaza city and middle area are most affected, with scheduled power cuts increased to 8-12 hours/day. The broken unit is being repaired, but a source at the plant suggests that such failure could have been avoided if spare parts were available.

Early Recovery

Following the publication of the PA’s Palestinian National Early Recovery and Reconstruction Plan for Gaza 2009-2010, four groups (Governance, Livelihoods, Utilities and Environment) have now been established under the umbrella of the Early Recovery Cluster. The objective is to prioritise early recovery and transitional reconstruction efforts in each area as and when access improves.

Water and Sanitation

Some 50,000 people still remain without access to water through the public network, while 100,000 others experience intermittent supply of water. ACF, CARE, Oxfam and PHG continue to deliver water by tankers to affected neighborhoods. Lack of materials and equipment for the WASH sector continue to hamper repairs and rehabilitation efforts.

During a recent sampling in January/February, data on watery diarrheal diseases among children 0-3 years old, attending UNRWA facilities, was compared to the corresponding weeks last year. An increase of 18 % in the incidence of the disease was reported, assumed to be related to war-related damage to the water supply systems. The epidemiological surveillance system in Gaza Strip resumed functionality on 20 January.

Education

The need to provide psychosocial services for school children and teachers has led to the establishment of a subgroup, facilitated by Sharek Youth Forum and involving approximately ten organizations, including Gaza-based universities. Preparations for the training and capacity building of 354 Gaza school and NGO counselors are well underway.

Access of supplies into Gaza remains a key obstacle for a number of education interventions, ranging from school repairs and rehabilitation to provision of training material for teachers and counselors.

Food Security / Agriculture

The availability of most basic foods is at an acceptable level for both fresh and dry foods but this is highly volatile. Problems remain for selected items. Fresh chicken and meat, cleaning material and cooking gas were found to be unavailable or in short supply as of 10 March 2009.

Shortages of animal feed and gas have contributed to the increase in the price of chicken in the market from 12 to 17.25 NIS/kg.

As of 10 March, the total stock of wheat flour in Gaza mills is 10,900 mt, which is sufficient to cover the needs of the total population for approximately 24 days (i.e. until 3 April 2009).

A statement issued by the IDF Spokesperson’s Office on 11 March announced the decision to restrict fishing to three nautical miles from the coast. Since 2002, fishermen have been restricted to 6-8 nautical miles despite the 20 nautical miles agreed by the Israeli Government under the Oslo Accords and 12 miles following by the commitments by the Government of Israel under the Bertini Commitments. Limiting sea areas causes over-fishing and threatens the livelihoods of over 3,000 fishermen in Gaza who rely on fishing to support their families.

Severe restrictions on agricultural inputs continue to delay recovery and rehabilitation efforts of land, greenhouses, nurseries, roads, wells and irrigation networks. The import ban on live animals constrains breeding efforts in the livestock sub sector and makes the market prices of red and white meat, including beef, lamb and chicken, unaffordable for the majority of consumers.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.

(Excerpts from The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995.

This entry was posted on Mar 22, 2009 at 02:24:14 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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A taperecording of Nadia Matar's call for the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas

A number of people have asked if I have a recording for the report that Israeli colonist Nadia Matar called for the killing of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas last night during a lecture at the Safra Synagogue on E. 63rd Street in New York.

At the beginning, a guy in the crowd (somewhat inaudibly) asks Matar, What do you do with a million Palestinians? Matar gives a rambling and hair-raising answer, most of which is here, including the statement that Israel should have kicked out all the Arabs in '48 or '67 and grabbed the Temple Mount, too. At 2:30 or so she starts in about Neville Chamberlain and Hitler and Churchill, which brings her, at 3:15 or so, to Abbas.

Notice the rousing applause for Matar's call for his murder, which I failed to register when I posted late last night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACTION ALERT: Thanks to Marlene for the post above and the following message:

Just wondering what the media response would be if someone was calling for the assassination of Olmert for example, in a mosque here in New York City, and asking for tax deductible contributions as a side dish. It would be on every front page of practically every newspaper in the United States, and then probably the mosque would be investigated, and then might even possibly be shut down. I would imagine that a person like that would be refused entry to this country at some point, as well as any members of that person's organization which would no doubt be labeled as a terrorist organization. Also, the people who are hosting Matar should be held accountible.

Please write to members of Congress protesting this tax-deductible organization and the entry of these people into the United States who publicly call for assassinations, and that this country's policy of different strokes for different folks should not be tolerated.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” -- Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator, 1883-1945

The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

MATT TAIBBI

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).

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So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company's CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: "The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now," he said. "When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too." In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being "consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet's investment portfolio down."

Liddy made AIG sound like an orphan begging in a soup line, hungry and sick from being left out in someone else's financial weather. He conveniently forgot to mention that AIG had spent more than a decade systematically scheming to evade U.S. and international regulators, or that one of the causes of its "pneumonia" was making colossal, world-sinking $500 billion bets with money it didn't have, in a toxic and completely unregulated derivatives market.

Nor did anyone mention that when AIG finally got up from its seat at the Wall Street casino, broke and busted in the afterdawn light, it owed money all over town — and that a huge chunk of your taxpayer dollars in this particular bailout scam will be going to pay off the other high rollers at its table. Or that this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

I. PATIENT ZERO

The best way to understand the financial crisis is to understand the meltdown at AIG. AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror. This is a company that built a giant fortune across more than a century by betting on safety-conscious policyholders — people who wear seat belts and build houses on high ground — and then blew it all in a year or two by turning their entire balance sheet over to a guy who acted like making huge bets with other people's money would make his dick bigger.

That guy — the Patient Zero of the global economic meltdown — was one Joseph Cassano, the head of a tiny, 400-person unit within the company called AIG Financial Products, or AIGFP. Cassano, a pudgy, balding Brooklyn College grad with beady eyes and way too much forehead, cut his teeth in the Eighties working for Mike Milken, the granddaddy of modern Wall Street debt alchemists. Milken, who pioneered the creative use of junk bonds, relied on messianic genius and a whole array of insider schemes to evade detection while wreaking financial disaster. Cassano, by contrast, was just a greedy little turd with a knack for selective accounting who ran his scam right out in the open, thanks to Washington's deregulation of the Wall Street casino. "It's all about the regulatory environment," says a government source involved with the AIG bailout. "These guys look for holes in the system, for ways they can do trades without government interference. Whatever is unregulated, all the action is going to pile into that."

The mess Cassano created had its roots in an investment boom fueled in part by a relatively new type of financial instrument called a collateralized-debt obligation. A CDO is like a box full of diced-up assets. They can be anything: mortgages, corporate loans, aircraft loans, credit-card loans, even other CDOs. So as X mortgage holder pays his bill, and Y corporate debtor pays his bill, and Z credit-card debtor pays his bill, money flows into the box.

The key idea behind a CDO is that there will always be at least some money in the box, regardless of how dicey the individual assets inside it are. No matter how you look at a single unemployed ex-con trying to pay the note on a six-bedroom house, he looks like a bad investment. But dump his loan in a box with a smorgasbord of auto loans, credit-card debt, corporate bonds and other crap, and you can be reasonably sure that somebody is going to pay up. Say $100 is supposed to come into the box every month. Even in an apocalypse, when $90 in payments might default, you'll still get $10. What the inventors of the CDO did is divide up the box into groups of investors and put that $10 into its own level, or "tranche." They then convinced ratings agencies like Moody's and S&P to give that top tranche the highest AAA rating — meaning it has close to zero credit risk.

Suddenly, thanks to this financial seal of approval, banks had a way to turn their shittiest mortgages and other financial waste into investment-grade paper and sell them to institutional investors like pensions and insurance companies, which were forced by regulators to keep their portfolios as safe as possible. Because CDOs offered higher rates of return than truly safe products like Treasury bills, it was a win-win: Banks made a fortune selling CDOs, and big investors made much more holding them.

The problem was, none of this was based on reality. "The banks knew they were selling crap," says a London-based trader from one of the bailed-out companies. To get AAA ratings, the CDOs relied not on their actual underlying assets but on crazy mathematical formulas that the banks cooked up to make the investments look safer than they really were. "They had some back room somewhere where a bunch of Indian guys who'd been doing nothing but math for God knows how many years would come up with some kind of model saying that this or that combination of debtors would only default once every 10,000 years," says one young trader who sold CDOs for a major investment bank. "It was nuts."

Now that even the crappiest mortgages could be sold to conservative investors, the CDOs spurred a massive explosion of irresponsible and predatory lending. In fact, there was such a crush to underwrite CDOs that it became hard to find enough subprime mortgages — read: enough unemployed meth dealers willing to buy million-dollar homes for no money down — to fill them all. As banks and investors of all kinds took on more and more in CDOs and similar instruments, they needed some way to hedge their massive bets — some kind of insurance policy, in case the housing bubble burst and all that debt went south at the same time. This was particularly true for investment banks, many of which got stuck holding or "warehousing" CDOs when they wrote more than they could sell. And that's were Joe Cassano came in.

Known for his boldness and arrogance, Cassano took over as chief of AIGFP in 2001. He was the favorite of Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the head of AIG, who admired the younger man's hard-driving ways, even if neither he nor his successors fully understood exactly what it was that Cassano did. According to a source familiar with AIG's internal operations, Cassano basically told senior management, "You know insurance, I know investments, so you do what you do, and I'll do what I do — leave me alone." Given a free hand within the company, Cassano set out from his offices in London to sell a lucrative form of "insurance" to all those investors holding lots of CDOs. His tool of choice was another new financial instrument known as a credit-default swap, or CDS.

The CDS was popularized by J.P. Morgan, in particular by a group of young, creative bankers who would later become known as the "Morgan Mafia," as many of them would go on to assume influential positions in the finance world. In 1994, in between booze and games of tennis at a resort in Boca Raton, Florida, the Morgan gang plotted a way to help boost the bank's returns. One of their goals was to find a way to lend more money, while working around regulations that required them to keep a set amount of cash in reserve to back those loans. What they came up with was an early version of the credit-default swap.

In its simplest form, a CDS is just a bet on an outcome. Say Bank A writes a million-dollar mortgage to the Pope for a town house in the West Village. Bank A wants to hedge its mortgage risk in case the Pope can't make his monthly payments, so it buys CDS protection from Bank B, wherein it agrees to pay Bank B a premium of $1,000 a month for five years. In return, Bank B agrees to pay Bank A the full million-dollar value of the Pope's mortgage if he defaults. In theory, Bank A is covered if the Pope goes on a meth binge and loses his job.

When Morgan presented their plans for credit swaps to regulators in the late Nineties, they argued that if they bought CDS protection for enough of the investments in their portfolio, they had effectively moved the risk off their books. Therefore, they argued, they should be allowed to lend more, without keeping more cash in reserve. A whole host of regulators — from the Federal Reserve to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — accepted the argument, and Morgan was allowed to put more money on the street.

What Cassano did was to transform the credit swaps that Morgan popularized into the world's largest bet on the housing boom. In theory, at least, there's nothing wrong with buying a CDS to insure your investments. Investors paid a premium to AIGFP, and in return the company promised to pick up the tab if the mortgage-backed CDOs went bust. But as Cassano went on a selling spree, the deals he made differed from traditional insurance in several significant ways. First, the party selling CDS protection didn't have to post any money upfront. When a $100 corporate bond is sold, for example, someone has to show 100 actual dollars. But when you sell a $100 CDS guarantee, you don't have to show a dime. So Cassano could sell investment banks billions in guarantees without having any single asset to back it up.

Secondly, Cassano was selling so-called "naked" CDS deals. In a "naked" CDS, neither party actually holds the underlying loan. In other words, Bank B not only sells CDS protection to Bank A for its mortgage on the Pope — it turns around and sells protection to Bank C for the very same mortgage. This could go on ad nauseam: You could have Banks D through Z also betting on Bank A's mortgage. Unlike traditional insurance, Cassano was offering investors an opportunity to bet that someone else's house would burn down, or take out a term life policy on the guy with AIDS down the street. It was no different from gambling, the Wall Street version of a bunch of frat brothers betting on Jay Feely to make a field goal. Cassano was taking book for every bank that bet short on the housing market, but he didn't have the cash to pay off if the kick went wide.

In a span of only seven years, Cassano sold some $500 billion worth of CDS protection, with at least $64 billion of that tied to the subprime mortgage market. AIG didn't have even a fraction of that amount of cash on hand to cover its bets, but neither did it expect it would ever need any reserves. So long as defaults on the underlying securities remained a highly unlikely proposition, AIG was essentially collecting huge and steadily climbing premiums by selling insurance for the disaster it thought would never come.

Initially, at least, the revenues were enormous: AIGFP's returns went from $737 million in 1999 to $3.2 billion in 2005. Over the past seven years, the subsidiary's 400 employees were paid a total of $3.5 billion; Cassano himself pocketed at least $280 million in compensation. Everyone made their money — and then it all went to shit.

II. THE REGULATORS

Cassano's outrageous gamble wouldn't have been possible had he not had the good fortune to take over AIGFP just as Sen. Phil Gramm — a grinning, laissez-faire ideologue from Texas — had finished engineering the most dramatic deregulation of the financial industry since Emperor Hien Tsung invented paper money in 806 A.D. For years, Washington had kept a watchful eye on the nation's banks. Ever since the Great Depression, commercial banks — those that kept money on deposit for individuals and businesses — had not been allowed to double as investment banks, which raise money by issuing and selling securities. The Glass-Steagall Act, passed during the Depression, also prevented banks of any kind from getting into the insurance business.

But in the late Nineties, a few years before Cassano took over AIGFP, all that changed. The Democrats, tired of getting slaughtered in the fundraising arena by Republicans, decided to throw off their old reliance on unions and interest groups and become more "business-friendly." Wall Street responded by flooding Washington with money, buying allies in both parties. In the 10-year period beginning in 1998, financial companies spent $1.7 billion on federal campaign contributions and another $3.4 billion on lobbyists. They quickly got what they paid for. In 1999, Gramm co-sponsored a bill that repealed key aspects of the Glass-Steagall Act, smoothing the way for the creation of financial megafirms like Citigroup. The move did away with the built-in protections afforded by smaller banks. In the old days, a local banker knew the people whose loans were on his balance sheet: He wasn't going to give a million-dollar mortgage to a homeless meth addict, since he would have to keep that loan on his books. But a giant merged bank might write that loan and then sell it off to some fool in China, and who cared?

The very next year, Gramm compounded the problem by writing a sweeping new law called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that made it impossible to regulate credit swaps as either gambling or securities. Commercial banks — which, thanks to Gramm, were now competing directly with investment banks for customers — were driven to buy credit swaps to loosen capital in search of higher yields. "By ruling that credit-default swaps were not gaming and not a security, the way was cleared for the growth of the market," said Eric Dinallo, head of the New York State Insurance Department.

The blanket exemption meant that Joe Cassano could now sell as many CDS contracts as he wanted, building up as huge a position as he wanted, without anyone in government saying a word. "You have to remember, investment banks aren't in the business of making huge directional bets," says the government source involved in the AIG bailout. When investment banks write CDS deals, they hedge them. But insurance companies don't have to hedge. And that's what AIG did. "They just bet massively long on the housing market," says the source. "Billions and billions."

In the biggest joke of all, Cassano's wheeling and dealing was regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision, an agency that would prove to be defiantly uninterested in keeping watch over his operations. How a behemoth like AIG came to be regulated by the little-known and relatively small OTS is yet another triumph of the deregulatory instinct. Under another law passed in 1999, certain kinds of holding companies could choose the OTS as their regulator, provided they owned one or more thrifts (better known as savings-and-loans). Because the OTS was viewed as more compliant than the Fed or the Securities and Exchange Commission, companies rushed to reclassify themselves as thrifts. In 1999, AIG purchased a thrift in Delaware and managed to get approval for OTS regulation of its entire operation.

Making matters even more hilarious, AIGFP — a London-based subsidiary of an American insurance company — ought to have been regulated by one of Europe's more stringent regulators, like Britain's Financial Services Authority. But the OTS managed to convince the Europeans that it had the muscle to regulate these giant companies. By 2007, the EU had conferred legitimacy to OTS supervision of three mammoth firms — GE, AIG and Ameriprise.

That same year, as the subprime crisis was exploding, the Government Accountability Office criticized the OTS, noting a "disparity between the size of the agency and the diverse firms it oversees." Among other things, the GAO report noted that the entire OTS had only one insurance specialist on staff — and this despite the fact that it was the primary regulator for the world's largest insurer!

"There's this notion that the regulators couldn't do anything to stop AIG," says a government official who was present during the bailout. "That's bullshit. What you have to understand is that these regulators have ultimate power. They can send you a letter and say, 'You don't exist anymore,' and that's basically that. They don't even really need due process. The OTS could have said, 'We're going to pull your charter; we're going to pull your license; we're going to sue you.' And getting sued by your primary regulator is the kiss of death."

When AIG finally blew up, the OTS regulator ostensibly in charge of overseeing the insurance giant — a guy named C.K. Lee — basically admitted that he had blown it. His mistake, Lee said, was that he believed all those credit swaps in Cassano's portfolio were "fairly benign products." Why? Because the company told him so. "The judgment the company was making was that there was no big credit risk," he explained. (Lee now works as Midwest region director of the OTS; the agency declined to make him available for an interview.)

In early March, after the latest bailout of AIG, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner took what seemed to be a thinly veiled shot at the OTS, calling AIG a "huge, complex global insurance company attached to a very complicated investment bank/hedge fund that was allowed to build up without any adult supervision." But even without that "adult supervision," AIG might have been OK had it not been for a complete lack of internal controls. For six months before its meltdown, according to insiders, the company had been searching for a full-time chief financial officer and a chief risk-assessment officer, but never got around to hiring either. That meant that the 18th-largest company in the world had no one checking to make sure its balance sheet was safe and no one keeping track of how much cash and assets the firm had on hand. The situation was so bad that when outside consultants were called in a few weeks before the bailout, senior executives were unable to answer even the most basic questions about their company — like, for instance, how much exposure the firm had to the residential-mortgage market.

III. THE CRASH

Ironically, when reality finally caught up to Cassano, it wasn't because the housing market crapped but because of AIG itself. Before 2005, the company's debt was rated triple-A, meaning he didn't need to post much cash to sell CDS protection: The solid creditworthiness of AIG's name was guarantee enough. But the company's crummy accounting practices eventually caused its credit rating to be downgraded, triggering clauses in the CDS contracts that forced Cassano to post substantially more collateral to back his deals.

By the fall of 2007, it was evident that AIGFP's portfolio had turned poisonous, but like every good Wall Street huckster, Cassano schemed to keep his insane, Earth-swallowing gamble hidden from public view. That August, balls bulging, he announced to investors on a conference call that "it is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing $1 in any of those transactions." As he spoke, his CDS portfolio was racking up $352 million in losses. When the growing credit crunch prompted senior AIG executives to re-examine its liabilities, a company accountant named Joseph St. Denis became "gravely concerned" about the CDS deals and their potential for mass destruction. Cassano responded by personally forcing the poor sap out of the firm, telling him he was "deliberately excluded" from the financial review for fear that he might "pollute the process."

The following February, when AIG posted $11.5 billion in annual losses, it announced the resignation of Cassano as head of AIGFP, saying an auditor had found a "material weakness" in the CDS portfolio. But amazingly, the company not only allowed Cassano to keep $34 million in bonuses, it kept him on as a consultant for $1 million a month. In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his fuck-ups. When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to "retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had." (Cassano, who is apparently hiding out in his lavish town house near Harrods in London, could not be reached for comment.)

What sank AIG in the end was another credit downgrade. Cassano had written so many CDS deals that when the company was facing another downgrade to its credit rating last September, from AA to A, it needed to post billions in collateral — not only more cash than it had on its balance sheet but more cash than it could raise even if it sold off every single one of its liquid assets. Even so, management dithered for days, not believing the company was in serious trouble. AIG was a dried-up prune, sapped of any real value, and its top executives didn't even know it.

On the weekend of September 13th, AIG's senior leaders were summoned to the offices of the New York Federal Reserve. Regulators from Dinallo's insurance office were there, as was Geithner, then chief of the New York Fed. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who spent most of the weekend preoccupied with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, came in and out. Also present, for reasons that would emerge later, was Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs. The only relevant government office that wasn't represented was the regulator that should have been there all along: the OTS.

"We sat down with Paulson, Geithner and Dinallo," says a person present at the negotiations. "I didn't see the OTS even once."

On September 14th, according to another person present, Treasury officials presented Blankfein and other bankers in attendance with an absurd proposal: "They basically asked them to spend a day and check to see if they could raise the money privately." The laughably short time span to complete the mammoth task made the answer a foregone conclusion. At the end of the day, the bankers came back and told the government officials, gee, we checked, but we can't raise that much. And the bailout was on.

A short time later, it came out that AIG was planning to pay some $90 million in deferred compensation to former executives, and to accelerate the payout of $277 million in bonuses to others — a move the company insisted was necessary to "retain key employees." When Congress balked, AIG canceled the $90 million in payments.

Then, in January 2009, the company did it again. After all those years letting Cassano run wild, and after already getting caught paying out insane bonuses while on the public till, AIG decided to pay out another $450 million in bonuses. And to whom? To the 400 or so employees in Cassano's old unit, AIGFP, which is due to go out of business shortly! Yes, that's right, an average of $1.1 million in taxpayer-backed money apiece, to the very people who spent the past decade or so punching a hole in the fabric of the universe!

"We, uh, needed to keep these highly expert people in their seats," AIG spokeswoman Christina Pretto says to me in early February.

Pretto protests, says this isn't fair. The employees at AIGFP have already taken pay cuts, she says. Not retaining them would dilute the value of the company even further, make it harder to wrap up the unit's operations in an orderly fashion.

The bonuses are a nice comic touch highlighting one of the more outrageous tangents of the bailout age, namely the fact that, even with the planet in flames, some members of the Wall Street class can't even get used to the tragedy of having to fly coach. "These people need their trips to Baja, their spa treatments, their hand jobs," says an official involved in the AIG bailout, a serious look on his face, apparently not even half-kidding. "They don't function well without them."

IV. THE POWER GRAB

So that's the first step in wall street's power grab: making up things like credit-default swaps and collateralized-debt obligations, financial products so complex and inscrutable that ordinary American dumb people — to say nothing of federal regulators and even the CEOs of major corporations like AIG — are too intimidated to even try to understand them. That, combined with wise political investments, enabled the nation's top bankers to effectively scrap any meaningful oversight of the financial industry. In 1997 and 1998, the years leading up to the passage of Phil Gramm's fateful act that gutted Glass-Steagall, the banking, brokerage and insurance industries spent $350 million on political contributions and lobbying. Gramm alone — then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee — collected $2.6 million in only five years. The law passed 90-8 in the Senate, with the support of 38 Democrats, including some names that might surprise you: Joe Biden, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Dick Durbin, even John Edwards.

The act helped create the too-big-to-fail financial behemoths like Citigroup, AIG and Bank of America — and in turn helped those companies slowly crush their smaller competitors, leaving the major Wall Street firms with even more money and power to lobby for further deregulatory measures. "We're moving to an oligopolistic situation," Kenneth Guenther, a top executive with the Independent Community Bankers of America, lamented after the Gramm measure was passed.

The situation worsened in 2004, in an extraordinary move toward deregulation that never even got to a vote. At the time, the European Union was threatening to more strictly regulate the foreign operations of America's big investment banks if the U.S. didn't strengthen its own oversight. So the top five investment banks got together on April 28th of that year and — with the helpful assistance of then-Goldman Sachs chief and future Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson — made a pitch to George Bush's SEC chief at the time, William Donaldson, himself a former investment banker. The banks generously volunteered to submit to new rules restricting them from engaging in excessively risky activity. In exchange, they asked to be released from any lending restrictions. The discussion about the new rules lasted just 55 minutes, and there was not a single representative of a major media outlet there to record the fateful decision.

Donaldson OK'd the proposal, and the new rules were enough to get the EU to drop its threat to regulate the five firms. The only catch was, neither Donaldson nor his successor, Christopher Cox, actually did any regulating of the banks. They named a commission of seven people to oversee the five companies, whose combined assets came to total more than $4 trillion. But in the last year and a half of Cox's tenure, the group had no director and did not complete a single inspection. Great deal for the banks, which originally complained about being regulated by both Europe and the SEC, and ended up being regulated by no one.

Once the capital requirements were gone, those top five banks went hog-wild, jumping ass-first into the then-raging housing bubble. One of those was Bear Stearns, which used its freedom to drown itself in bad mortgage loans. In the short period between the 2004 change and Bear's collapse, the firm's debt-to-equity ratio soared from 12-1 to an insane 33-1. Another culprit was Goldman Sachs, which also had the good fortune, around then, to see its CEO, a bald-headed Frankensteinian goon named Hank Paulson (who received an estimated $200 million tax deferral by joining the government), ascend to Treasury secretary.

Freed from all capital restraints, sitting pretty with its man running the Treasury, Goldman jumped into the housing craze just like everyone else on Wall Street. Although it famously scored an $11 billion coup in 2007 when one of its trading units smartly shorted the housing market, the move didn't tell the whole story. In truth, Goldman still had a huge exposure come that fateful summer of 2008 — to none other than Joe Cassano.

Goldman Sachs, it turns out, was Cassano's biggest customer, with $20 billion of exposure in Cassano's CDS book. Which might explain why Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein was in the room with ex-Goldmanite Hank Paulson that weekend of September 13th, when the federal government was supposedly bailing out AIG.

When asked why Blankfein was there, one of the government officials who was in the meeting shrugs. "One might say that it's because Goldman had so much exposure to AIGFP's portfolio," he says. "You'll never prove that, but one might suppose."

Market analyst Eric Salzman is more blunt. "If AIG went down," he says, "there was a good chance Goldman would not be able to collect." The AIG bailout, in effect, was Goldman bailing out Goldman.

Eventually, Paulson went a step further, elevating another ex-Goldmanite named Edward Liddy to run AIG — a company whose bailout money would be coming, in part, from the newly created TARP program, administered by another Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari.

V. REPO MEN

There are plenty of people who have noticed, in recent years, that when they lost their homes to foreclosure or were forced into bankruptcy because of crippling credit-card debt, no one in the government was there to rescue them. But when Goldman Sachs — a company whose average employee still made more than $350,000 last year, even in the midst of a depression — was suddenly faced with the possibility of losing money on the unregulated insurance deals it bought for its insane housing bets, the government was there in an instant to patch the hole. That's the essence of the bailout: rich bankers bailing out rich bankers, using the taxpayers' credit card.

The people who have spent their lives cloistered in this Wall Street community aren't much for sharing information with the great unwashed. Because all of this shit is complicated, because most of us mortals don't know what the hell LIBOR is or how a REIT works or how to use the word "zero coupon bond" in a sentence without sounding stupid — well, then, the people who do speak this idiotic language cannot under any circumstances be bothered to explain it to us and instead spend a lot of time rolling their eyes and asking us to trust them.

That roll of the eyes is a key part of the psychology of Paulsonism. The state is now being asked not just to call off its regulators or give tax breaks or funnel a few contracts to connected companies; it is intervening directly in the economy, for the sole purpose of preserving the influence of the megafirms. In essence, Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers.

Some aspects of the bailout were secretive to the point of absurdity. In fact, if you look closely at just a few lines in the Federal Reserve's weekly public disclosures, you can literally see the moment where a big chunk of your money disappeared for good. The H4 report (called "Factors Affecting Reserve Balances") summarizes the activities of the Fed each week. You can find it online, and it's pretty much the only thing the Fed ever tells the world about what it does. For the week ending February 18th, the number under the heading "Repurchase Agreements" on the table is zero. It's a significant number.

Why? In the pre-crisis days, the Fed used to manage the money supply by periodically buying and selling securities on the open market through so-called Repurchase Agreements, or Repos. The Fed would typically dump $25 billion or so in cash onto the market every week, buying up Treasury bills, U.S. securities and even mortgage-backed securities from institutions like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, who would then "repurchase" them in a short period of time, usually one to seven days. This was the Fed's primary mechanism for controlling interest rates: Buying up securities gives banks more money to lend, which makes interest rates go down. Selling the securities back to the banks reduces the money available for lending, which makes interest rates go up.

If you look at the weekly H4 reports going back to the summer of 2007, you start to notice something alarming. At the start of the credit crunch, around August of that year, you see the Fed buying a few more Repos than usual — $33 billion or so. By November, as private-bank reserves were dwindling to alarmingly low levels, the Fed started injecting even more cash than usual into the economy: $48 billion. By late December, the number was up to $58 billion; by the following March, around the time of the Bear Stearns rescue, the Repo number had jumped to $77 billion. In the week of May 1st, 2008, the number was $115 billion — "out of control now," according to one congressional aide. For the rest of 2008, the numbers remained similarly in the stratosphere, the Fed pumping as much as $125 billion of these short-term loans into the economy — until suddenly, at the start of this year, the number drops to nothing. Zero.

The reason the number has dropped to nothing is that the Fed had simply stopped using relatively transparent devices like repurchase agreements to pump its money into the hands of private companies. By early 2009, a whole series of new government operations had been invented to inject cash into the economy, most all of them completely secretive and with names you've never heard of. There is the Term Auction Facility, the Term Securities Lending Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and a monster called the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (boasting the chat-room horror-show acronym ABCPMMMFLF). For good measure, there's also something called a Money Market Investor Funding Facility, plus three facilities called Maiden Lane I, II and III to aid bailout recipients like Bear Stearns and AIG.

While the rest of America, and most of Congress, have been bugging out about the $700 billion bailout program called TARP, all of these newly created organisms in the Federal Reserve zoo have quietly been pumping not billions but trillions of dollars into the hands of private companies (at least $3 trillion so far in loans, with as much as $5.7 trillion more in guarantees of private investments). Although this technically isn't taxpayer money, it still affects taxpayers directly, because the activities of the Fed impact the economy as a whole. And this new, secretive activity by the Fed completely eclipses the TARP program in terms of its influence on the economy.

No one knows who's getting that money or exactly how much of it is disappearing through these new holes in the hull of America's credit rating. Moreover, no one can really be sure if these new institutions are even temporary at all — or whether they are being set up as permanent, state-aided crutches to Wall Street, designed to systematically suck bad investments off the ledgers of irresponsible lenders.

"They're supposed to be temporary," says Paul-Martin Foss, an aide to Rep. Ron Paul. "But we keep getting notices every six months or so that they're being renewed. They just sort of quietly announce it."

None other than disgraced senator Ted Stevens was the poor sap who made the unpleasant discovery that if Congress didn't like the Fed handing trillions of dollars to banks without any oversight, Congress could apparently go fuck itself — or so said the law. When Stevens asked the GAO about what authority Congress has to monitor the Fed, he got back a letter citing an obscure statute that nobody had ever heard of before: the Accounting and Auditing Act of 1950. The relevant section, 31 USC 714(b), dictated that congressional audits of the Federal Reserve may not include "deliberations, decisions and actions on monetary policy matters." The exemption, as Foss notes, "basically includes everything." According to the law, in other words, the Fed simply cannot be audited by Congress. Or by anyone else, for that matter.

VI. WINNERS AND LOSERS

Stevens isn't the only person in Congress to be given the finger by the Fed. In January, when Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida asked Federal Reserve vice chairman Donald Kohn where all the money went — only $1.2 trillion had vanished by then — Kohn gave Grayson a classic eye roll, saying he would be "very hesitant" to name names because it might discourage banks from taking the money.

"Has that ever happened?" Grayson asked. "Have people ever said, 'We will not take your $100 billion because people will find out about it?'"

"Well, we said we would not publish the names of the borrowers, so we have no test of that," Kohn answered, visibly annoyed with Grayson's meddling.

Grayson pressed on, demanding to know on what terms the Fed was lending the money. Presumably it was buying assets and making loans, but no one knew how it was pricing those assets — in other words, no one knew what kind of deal it was striking on behalf of taxpayers. So when Grayson asked if the purchased assets were "marked to market" — a methodology that assigns a concrete value to assets, based on the market rate on the day they are traded — Kohn answered, mysteriously, "The ones that have market values are marked to market." The implication was that the Fed was purchasing derivatives like credit swaps or other instruments that were basically impossible to value objectively — paying real money for God knows what.

"Well, how much of them don't have market values?" asked Grayson. "How much of them are worthless?"

"None are worthless," Kohn snapped.

"Then why don't you mark them to market?" Grayson demanded.

"Well," Kohn sighed, "we are marking the ones to market that have market values."

In essence, the Fed was telling Congress to lay off and let the experts handle things. "It's like buying a car in a used-car lot without opening the hood, and saying, 'I think it's fine,'" says Dan Fuss, an analyst with the investment firm Loomis Sayles. "The salesman says, 'Don't worry about it. Trust me.' It'll probably get us out of the lot, but how much farther? None of us knows."

When one considers the comparatively extensive system of congressional checks and balances that goes into the spending of every dollar in the budget via the normal appropriations process, what's happening in the Fed amounts to something truly revolutionary — a kind of shadow government with a budget many times the size of the normal federal outlay, administered dictatorially by one man, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. "We spend hours and hours and hours arguing over $10 million amendments on the floor of the Senate, but there has been no discussion about who has been receiving this $3 trillion," says Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It is beyond comprehension."

Count Sanders among those who don't buy the argument that Wall Street firms shouldn't have to face being outed as recipients of public funds, that making this information public might cause investors to panic and dump their holdings in these firms. "I guess if we made that public, they'd go on strike or something," he muses.

And the Fed isn't the only arm of the bailout that has closed ranks. The Treasury, too, has maintained incredible secrecy surrounding its implementation even of the TARP program, which was mandated by Congress. To this date, no one knows exactly what criteria the Treasury Department used to determine which banks received bailout funds and which didn't — particularly the first $350 billion given out under Bush appointee Hank Paulson.

The situation with the first TARP payments grew so absurd that when the Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with monitoring the bailout money, sent a query to Paulson asking how he decided whom to give money to, Treasury responded — and this isn't a joke — by directing the panel to a copy of the TARP application form on its website. Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, was struck nearly speechless by the response.

"Do you believe that?" she says incredulously. "That's not what we had in mind."

Another member of Congress, who asked not to be named, offers his own theory about the TARP process. "I think basically if you knew Hank Paulson, you got the money," he says.

This cozy arrangement created yet another opportunity for big banks to devour market share at the expense of smaller regional lenders. While all the bigwigs at Citi and Goldman and Bank of America who had Paulson on speed-dial got bailed out right away — remember that TARP was originally passed because money had to be lent right now, that day, that minute, to stave off emergency — many small banks are still waiting for help. Five months into the TARP program, some not only haven't received any funds, they haven't even gotten a call back about their applications.

"There's definitely a feeling among community bankers that no one up there cares much if they make it or not," says Tanya Wheeless, president of the Arizona Bankers Association.

Which, of course, is exactly the opposite of what should be happening, since small, regional banks are far less guilty of the kinds of predatory lending that sank the economy. "They're not giving out subprime loans or easy credit," says Wheeless. "At the community level, it's much more bread-and-butter banking."

Nonetheless, the lion's share of the bailout money has gone to the larger, so-called "systemically important" banks. "It's like Treasury is picking winners and losers," says one state banking official who asked not to be identified.

This itself is a hugely important political development. In essence, the bailout accelerated the decline of regional community lenders by boosting the political power of their giant national competitors.

Which, when you think about it, is insane: What had brought us to the brink of collapse in the first place was this relentless instinct for building ever-larger megacompanies, passing deregulatory measures to gradually feed all the little fish in the sea to an ever-shrinking pool of Bigger Fish. To fix this problem, the government should have slowly liquidated these monster, too-big-to-fail firms and broken them down to smaller, more manageable companies. Instead, federal regulators closed ranks and used an almost completely secret bailout process to double down on the same faulty, merger-happy thinking that got us here in the first place, creating a constellation of megafirms under government control that are even bigger, more unwieldy and more crammed to the gills with systemic risk.

In essence, Paulson and his cronies turned the federal government into one gigantic, half-opaque holding company, one whose balance sheet includes the world's most appallingly large and risky hedge fund, a controlling stake in a dying insurance giant, huge investments in a group of teetering megabanks, and shares here and there in various auto-finance companies, student loans, and other failing businesses. Like AIG, this new federal holding company is a firm that has no mechanism for auditing itself and is run by leaders who have very little grasp of the daily operations of its disparate subsidiary operations.

In other words, it's AIG's rip-roaringly shitty business model writ almost inconceivably massive — to echo Geithner, a huge, complex global company attached to a very complicated investment bank/hedge fund that's been allowed to build up without adult supervision. How much of what kinds of crap is actually on our balance sheet, and what did we pay for it? When exactly will the rent come due, when will the money run out? Does anyone know what the hell is going on? And on the linear spectrum of capitalism to socialism, where exactly are we now? Is there a dictionary word that even describes what we are now? It would be funny, if it weren't such a nightmare.

VII. YOU DON'T GET IT

The real question from here is whether the Obama administration is going to move to bring the financial system back to a place where sanity is restored and the general public can have a say in things or whether the new financial bureaucracy will remain obscure, secretive and hopelessly complex. It might not bode well that Geithner, Obama's Treasury secretary, is one of the architects of the Paulson bailouts; as chief of the New York Fed, he helped orchestrate the Goldman-friendly AIG bailout and the secretive Maiden Lane facilities used to funnel funds to the dying company. Neither did it look good when Geithner — himself a protégé of notorious Goldman alum John Thain, the Merrill Lynch chief who paid out billions in bonuses after the state spent billions bailing out his firm — picked a former Goldman lobbyist named Mark Patterson to be his top aide.

In fact, most of Geithner's early moves reek strongly of Paulsonism. He has continually talked about partnering with private investors to create a so-called "bad bank" that would systemically relieve private lenders of bad assets — the kind of massive, opaque, quasi-private bureaucratic nightmare that Paulson specialized in. Geithner even refloated a Paulson proposal to use TALF, one of the Fed's new facilities, to essentially lend cheap money to hedge funds to invest in troubled banks while practically guaranteeing them enormous profits.

God knows exactly what this does for the taxpayer, but hedge-fund managers sure love the idea. "This is exactly what the financial system needs," said Andrew Feldstein, CEO of Blue Mountain Capital and one of the Morgan Mafia. Strangely, there aren't many people who don't run hedge funds who have expressed anything like that kind of enthusiasm for Geithner's ideas.

As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged, they talk about how hard they work, the 90-hour weeks, the stress, the failed marriages, the hemorrhoids and gallstones they all get before they hit 40.

"But wait a minute," you say to them. "No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what's left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?"

But before you even finish saying that, they're rolling their eyes, because You Don't Get It. These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they're on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties. Yet these are the people in whose hands our entire political future now rests.

This entry was posted on Mar 22, 2009 at 01:36:56 pm and is filed under American Empire.
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HR 875: SHORT TITLE.-This Act may be cited as the "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009"
Full text version pdf of HR 875:
http:// frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?
dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h875ih.txt.pdf ]

-Wisdom says stop a bill that is broad as everything yet more vague even than it is broad.

-Wisdom says stop a bill that comes with massive penalties but allows no judicial review.

[More:]

-Wisdom says stop a bill with everything unspecified and that actually waits til next year for an unspecified "Administrator" to decide what's what.

-Where we come from, that's called a blank check. Who writes laws like that? "Here, do what you want about whatever you want and here's some deadly punishments to make it stick."

-Wisdom says know who wrote that bill and be forewarned.

-Wisdom says wake up.

Here's the bill. Let's use our imaginations and extrapolate from the little bit it reveals and from the reality we know.

SEC. 206. FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITIES.

(a) Authorities- In carrying out the duties of the Administrator and the purposes of this Act, the Administrator shall have the authority, with respectto food production facilities, to--

(1) visit and inspect food production facilities in the United Statesand in foreign countries to determine if they are operating in compliance with the requirements of the food safety law;

(2) review food safety records as required to be kept by the Administrator under section 210 and for other food safety purposes;

(3) set good practice standards to protect the public and animal health and promote food safety;

(4) conduct monitoring and surveillance of animals, plants, products, or the environment, as appropriate;

(b) Inspection of Records- A food production facility shall permit the Administrator upon presentation of appropriate credentials and at reasonable times and in a reasonable manner, to have access to and abilityto copy all records maintained by or on behalf of such food production establishment in any format (including paper or electronic) and at any location, that are necessary to assist the Administrator--

(1) to determine whether the food is contaminated, adulterated, or otherwise not in compliance with the food safety law; or

(2) to track the food in commerce.

(c) Regulations- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture andrepresentatives of State departments of agriculture, shall promulgate regulations to establish science- based minimum standards for the safe production of food by food production facilities. Such regulations shall--

(1) consider all relevant hazards, including those occurring naturally,and those that may be unintentionally or intentionally introduced;

(2) require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards;

Ah, such a little paragraph, and so much evil packed in it. Notice they mention harvesting, sorting and storage operations? Notice they never mention seeds but they are precisely what those words cover.

Now, watch how they will be able to easily criminalize seed banking and all holding of seeds. First, to follow how this will be done, you must understand that:

1. there is a small list inside the FDA called "sources of seed contamination" and

2. the FDA has now defined "seed" as food,

3. so seeds can now be controlled through "food safety."

Those seeds (so far) include:

*seeds eaten raw such as flax, poppy sesame, etc.;
*sprouting seeds such as wheat, beans, alfalfa, most greens, etc.;
* seeds pressed into oils such as corn, sunflower, canola, etc.;
*seeds used as animal feed such as soy ....

That includes most seeds. It may even be all seed, given how they are skilled at 'new' definitions.

And what are the "sources of seed contamination" inside the FDA? They include only six little items:

Did you know that seed cleaning equipment is THE single most critical piece of equipment for sustainable agriculture? It is how we collect organic seed. It is the machinery used after the season, when plants "go to seed," to separate out (sort) the seeds from the plant material so the farmer can collect (harvest) and then save (put in storage) seed for the next year at little cost. With his own seed, the farmer also stays free of patented, genetically engineered, corporately privatized seeds.

This year, 2009, one item on the "sources of seed contamination" list is suddenly illegal in some parts of this country - seed cleaning equipment.

To get the drift, perhaps you need to know that the people who clean seed are being wiped out, as well.

How can they make such vital equipment illegal? Quietly, first of all, so as not to alert organic farmers who have a lot of political ties. And by saying it contaminates food. And by applying their innocent and reasonable sounding "minimum standards."

"Contaminate" is their favorite word since the public fears the deadly contamination that industry itself - not farmers - has caused. That fear is valuable. Scare the public and it is easy to get "food safety standards" set without anyone reading them. 39 progressive co-sponsors leap on, thinking this is about "food safety." But it is only about the use of "food safety," not the reality of it

For to eliminate seed cleaning equipment, the FDA simple set minimum "food safety" standards for seed cleaning (the simple separation of seed from plant) such that a farmer would need a million toa million and a half dollar building and/or equipment to meet the new requirements ... per line of seed.

On the ground, where reality lives, a farmer in the midwest who has been seed cleaning flax for 40 years with his hand made seed cleaner now can't sell his flax on the market anymore. Never mind there are NO instances of anyone ever having gotten sick from seed cleaning equipment. And a farmer in another part of the midwest who has been cleaning wheat, corn and soy for years with one single perfectly fine piece of equipment would now need three to four and half million dollars for three separate pieces of equipment, in order to satisfy the "food safety" standards.

The FDA isn't so high-bar setting when it comes to other things like melamine in baby formula. Though it has proven to sicken and kill infants, initially the FDA just denied the melamine was in all the corporate baby formula but when people found evidence that it was, the FDA then quickly supplied a "food safety" standard that defined whatever level of melamine that was in the formula as fine.

This game playing about "food safety" standards - one to eliminate farmers by setting the bar so high no one can climb, and one to protect industry by setting the bar so low nothing need be done - is nothing new but now it is being suddenly extended to seeds. And it comes with penalties that make bankrupting farmers in an instant, very easy.

The effort to eliminate both seed cleaners and seed cleaning equipment tips us off to who is behind this (shhh) and to this new means of controlling seeds andmakes it possible to see just a few suspect words in this bill, and sense where things are heading.

Organic farmers are not aware of any of this happening. It appears the organic community is being treated with kid gloves until HR 875 and related bills should be passed, coddled so they don't get wise to what's afoot. And they are too disconnected from traditional farmers to be aware of how the USDA has been tromping on them for years.

So organic farmers have missed the handwriting on the wall for themselves.

Plus, plain ole farmers have a history of no one listening to them, which is too bad in general but now it's blatantly dangerous because it is they who are the ones bringing the warning that these bills are not just bad but deadly. The organic community, lulled by its own seeming safety, hasn't heard or understood.

But given what just happened with seed cleaning equipment (sorting), the method and the intent are exposed. "Food safety" is the weapon, with public fear, kept at a high pitch, as the driver. After which, those running this game only need to set the bar at a "food safety" level impossible to meet and apply horrendous punishments for not complying. Farmer is either crushed by that pincer move, or quits. Either way, his land is up for grabs.

And those severe punishments are essential to control groups which will see the whole thing for what it is - insane in terms of farming and anything to do with health, a threat to survival, and driven solely by profit and power.

So, one crucial piece of equipment (seed cleaning) is illegal now and without most people realizing. And simply because a single "foods safety" bar has been raised.

In time, as more and more farmers are forbidden from using their equipment, significant sources of organic seeds will begin to dry up, at which point the organic community would begin to ask what was going on. By then, it will be too late.

Why? Because look at the last item on the list - (seed) storing facilities.

Farmers, gardeners, seed saving exchanges, seed companies, scientific seed projects, and seed banks, all require sorting. All are working overtime to protect biodiversity that is rapidly disappearing specifically because of genetic engineering. As Monsanto began reducing access to seeds, people around the world have worked hard to compensate.

But now the effort is to take over the whole game, going after even these small sources of biodiversity - by simply defining seeds as food and then all farmers' affordable mechanisms for harvesting (collecting), sorting (seed cleaning) andstoring (seed banking or saving) as too dirty to be safe for food.

Set the standard for "food safety" and certification high enough that no one can afford it and punish anyone who tries to save seed in ways that have worked fine for thousands of years, with a million dollar a day fine and/or ten years in prison, and presto, you have just criminalized seed banking.

The penalties are tremendous, the better to protect us from nothing dangerous whatsoever, but to make monopoly over seed absolutely absolute. One is left with control over farmers, an end to seed exchanges, an end to organic seed companies, an end to university programs developing nice normal hybrids, and an end to democracy - reducing us to abject dependence on corporations for food and gratitude even for genetically engineered food and at any price.

When you know that Monsanto, with the help of the US government, plundered ancient and rare seed banks in Iraq that held seeds with a genetic heritage (a biohistory belonging to all of us) going back 1000s of years and then made it a crime for farmers there to collect or use their own normal andnon-patented seeds off their own land, you see how extreme the intent to control is.

Now, perhaps it is possible to see how the identical thing is being done here, only it comes in a heavily, heavily disguised way - through "food safety" that isn't "food safety" at all - and quietly sitting in only one tiny little paragraph within a very large bill (and with no reference to seeds at all).

The Iraqis are now utterly at the mercy of Monsanto and the US for survival itself and will have to pay whatever prices are set for food. They can no longer just grow their own and be free people. So, no matter what form of government they may ever have, as long as this is true, they are now enslaved because the control over them is that extreme. Kissinger was right - control food and you control people.

We are inches from this ourselves. The Left needs to wake up.

In Afghanistan, people are buying and planting beans from America which at the end of the season have nothing whatever inside, the pods are empty. In Equador, the potatoes there do not develop eyes so can't be planted next season to grow potatoes.

Biotech's claim to care about feeding starving multitudes is belied by its blocking human access to normal seeds and its terminator technology (empty beans). Monopoly is monopoly is monopoly. And at this level, and when it comes to seeds which are life itself, monopoly terminates democracy as well as beans.

This trick of setting bars above any ability to be in the game was done to blacks and in realizing this, we must hold Obama accountable for pushing these bills which are profound civil and human rights abuses.

There are three other items of the list which surely will be controlled as well. In toto,that little list of six items (agricultural water, manure, harvesting, transporting and seed cleaning equipment, and seed storage facilities) contains the pieces to deconstruct farming itself,

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=7467
Immediately withdraw HR 875, SR 425, HR 814, HR 759, and all related bills. They are intended to destroy small farmers and will trap us into GMOs

This entry was posted on Mar 22, 2009 at 01:10:09 pm and is filed under Environment, American Empire.
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Israel was not under attack at the time. The question of defense therefore does not arise.
__________________

Israel, with callous disregard for the lives of its own citizens and territory, chose to spurn all overtures by Hamas for a truce. Israel instead chose death and destruction over calm and peace.
_________________

The motivation for invading Gaza was not to stop the barrage of rockets being fired by Hamas. Israeli leaders had their own personal agendas for the invasion.
__________________

There is no denying that the government of Israel was duty bound to do whatever it takes to defend its territory and protect its citizens from the incessant and relentless bombardment of rockets shot by Hamas from Gaza. Thousands of them had been fired. They had been raining on Israel day in and day out, without let, for years, and, Hamas had ignored warning after warning issued by the Israeli government to stop it. An all out attack on Gaza was apparently the only solution. What else could Israel do?

The answer, of course, is quite simple. There is lots that Israel could have done other than invading Gaza, laying waste the land, killing hundreds and injuring thousands – lots that would have more effectively and surely protected Israeli territory and its citizens.
To begin with it must be understood that Israel was not under attack at the time and therefore the question of defense does not arise.

[More:]

Further, going to war – and Israel did go to war against the Gazans – is justified only as a last resort. When there is no other option available that will achieve the desired result as effectively. And, when there is a reasonable expectation that an invasion will achieve the aimed for goal.

As for the last requisite, it should have been clear to the Israelis from past experience that the invasion would not prevent Hamas from launching rockets. Israel had tried everything to force Hamas to its knees. The harder Israel hit Hamas, the more resistant and stronger it became. No amount of punishment would make Hamas give up its resistance. On that score alone, a full scale invasion should have been ruled out.

More important, an invasion of Gaza was not the only means available to Israel to defend its territory and protect its population, which, Israel claims, was the sole reason for the invasion. In fact, there was no need for the invasion at all for putting at end to the barrage of Hamas rockets.

There was, at the time, a truce between Israel and Hamas. This provided for the suspension by Hamas of firing rockets into Israel during the truce in return for Israel easing the crippling siege and blockade imposed by it against Gaza.

The truce had been going well. From the beginning of 2008 till June19 Hamas fired 2660 projectiles into Israel. From June 19, when the truce started, till November 4, only 65 rockets had been fired. Israel itself admitted that during the truce period there was a significant reduction of shells being lobbed into Israel.

Though a few rogue elements in Gaza did fire the 65 rockets into Israel, Hamas honored the truce and enforced it on its cadres (even Israel’s intelligence agencies acknowledged this had been implemented with surprising effectiveness).

As against this, Israel not only reneged on its commitment and failed to ease the strangling siege it had put on Gaza for months, but it deliberately broke the truce. On November 4, 2008 IDF went into Gaza and killed 6 Palestinians and injured 6 more, on the pretext of destroying a “ticking” tunnel. Then, one day later, it killed one more Palestinian (the truce was due to expire on December 19).

In spite of this provocative violation of the truce by Israel, Hamas tried its best to make Israel agree to continue the truce, offering to extend it to up to ten years. For several days before the expiry of the truce, Hamas sought, through the good offices of Egypt and others, to extend the truce.

As late as December 14, in a meeting with Jimmy Carter in Damascus, Khaled Mishal, Hamas political leader, offered to resume and extend the by-then-tattered six-month truce in return for Israel’s lifting the siege of Gaza. Robert Pastor, who accompanied Carter, promptly conveyed that offer to the Israeli military.

Clearly, strengthening and extending the truce was the way to go. That would have stopped the rockets from falling into Israel. Even Ephraim Halevy, former head of Mossad, who served as Ariel Sharon’s national security advisor, wrote recently in Yediot Ahronoth that the government could have stopped the rocket attacks long ago by lifting the siege on Gaza.

Had Israel really been concerned about peace, about stopping rockets being rained on Israel from Gaza, about freeing its citizens from living in fear of unannounced death and destruction from Qassam rockets, it would have accepted the offer made by Hamas and extended the truce.

But Israel, with callous disregard for Gaza and its inhabitants, and, more significantly, for the lives of its own citizens and territory, chose to spurn and ignore all overtures by Hamas to resume and even extend the truce. Israel chose instead death and destruction over calm and peace. It decided to invade Gaza - once again.

Brigadier General (Res) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division., in an interview on an Israeli Army Radio program, as quoted by Bradley Burston in Ha’aretz on December 22, accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . .” He went on to say, “We could have eased the siege over Gaza Strip in such a way that the Palestinians, Hamas, would have understood that holding fire served their interests. But when you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire. You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.”

And yet, Hamas was willing and offered to continue and extend the truce. It is Israel that did not want it.

The conclusion is inescapable that halting the rain of rockets on Israel was not the driving force behind Israel’s devastating invasion of Gaza. What then? Prime Minister Olmert was eager to divert attention from the ongoing probes against him and was also concerned about his “legacy”. He had been badly stung by his misadventure in Lebanon and the humiliating defeat Israel had suffered there. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima party, who was at the time contesting the elections and was hoping to become the next Prime Minister, wanted to show that though a woman she was as tough, if not tougher than her other two rivals, Ehud Barak and Benajamin Yetanhau. Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Labor, who was also contesting the elections, wanted to show that despite the perception (actually a misperception!) that he almost gave everything to the Palestinians at Clinton-sponsored negotiations at Camp David, he was as tough on the Palestinians as any of his rivals. He decided to project his army credentials. Netanyahu of Likud, a known rightist had to maintain and enhance his reputation of being completely anti-Palestinians. And all of them felt the need to re-establish the credibility of Israel’s “deterrence” which had suffered so after the Lebanon debacle.

Above all, the invasion was to ‘sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’ as former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon remarked about the goal of the occupation.

Apart from destroying Gaza and ruining the lives of thousands of Gazans – and boosting the chances of some of the politicians standing for election in Israel – the invasion was a total failure. Hamas, as usual, has emerged stronger than ever. The rockets fell even in the midst of the carnage. The only thing that got seared into the minds of the Gazans was the cruelty of Israel. And, as for re-establishing the credibility of Israel’s “deterrence”, it failed to impress. For that it would have had to take on someone its own size. Killing the corralled Gazans, after starving them for weeks, and invading Gaza with guided missiles, bombs, and artillery fire, using drones, F-16s, Apache helicopters, and ships – it was like shooting fish in a barrel. All that the invasion did was to establish Israel as a bully on a rampage..

It bears repeating: Israel could have done a lot to defend its territory and protect its citizens without launching a devastating attack on Gaza. It still can, if that is what it wants and not the destruction of Palestinian lands and the overthrow of Hamas.

Unfortunately it still finds ways to avoid a truce. It wanted Hamas to agree to stop firing rockets into Israel. Hamas has agreed. It wanted international help in stopping arms smuggling into Gaza. It has received assurances about that. It has now added one more demand: it will not agree to a truce in Gaza unless Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Palestinians in 2006 and is held by Palestinian militants, is freed. Israel would, as part of the deal, release some Palestinian prisoners held by it.

Prisoner exchange is a separate matter and could be a separate deal but Israel has tagged this additional demand as a condition to be met by Hamas for a truce to be agreed on by Israel. And for international reconstruction efforts to rebuild Gaza to start. In effect, Israel is holding 1,500,000 Gazans hostage to achieve its unending and ever changing demands

In the face of all this, to claim that “Israel wants peace but the Palestinians want terror” and to dramatically wail “What could we do” is, to say the least, the height of hypocrisy

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A T-shirt printed at the request of an IDF soldier in the sniper unit reading 'I shot two kills.'

20 March 2009

By Uri Blau

The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product.

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills." A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."

[More:]

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!" A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

In many cases, the content is submitted for approval to one of the unit's commanders. The latter, however, do not always have control over what gets printed, because the artwork is a private initiative of soldiers that they never hear about. Drawings or slogans previously banned in certain units have been approved for distribution elsewhere. For example, shirts declaring, "We won't chill 'til we confirm the kill" were banned in the past (the IDF claims that the practice doesn't exist), yet the Haruv battalion printed some last year.

The slogan "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.

"It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him."

Does the design go to the commanders for approval?

The Givati soldier: "Usually the shirts undergo a selection process by some officer, but in this case, they were approved at the level of platoon sergeant. We ordered shirts for 30 soldiers and they were really into it, and everyone wanted several items and paid NIS 200 on average."

What do you think of the slogan that was printed?

"I didn't like it so much, but most of the soldiers wanted it."

Many controversial shirts have been ordered by graduates of snipers courses, which bring together soldiers from various units. In 2006, soldiers from the "Carmon Team" course for elite-unit marksmen printed a shirt with a drawing of a knife-wielding Palestinian in the crosshairs of a gun sight, and the slogan, "You've got to run fast, run fast, run fast, before it's all over." Below is a drawing of Arab women weeping over a grave and the words: "And afterward they cry, and afterward they cry." [The inscriptions are riffs on a popular song.] Another sniper's shirt also features an Arab man in the crosshairs, and the announcement, "Everything is with the best of intentions."

G., a soldier in an elite unit who has done a snipers course, explained that, "it's a type of bonding process, and also it's well known that anyone who is a sniper is messed up in the head. Our shirts have a lot of double entendres, for example: 'Bad people with good aims.' Every group that finishes a course puts out stuff like that."

When are these shirts worn?

G. "These are shirts for around the house, for jogging, in the army. Not for going out. Sometimes people will ask you what it's about."

Of the shirt depicting a bull's-eye on a pregnant woman, he said: "There are people who think it's not right, and I think so as well, but it doesn't really mean anything. I mean it's not like someone is gonna go and shoot a pregnant woman."

What is the idea behind the shirt from July 2007, which has an image of a child with the slogan "Smaller - harder!"?

"It's a kid, so you've got a little more of a problem, morally, and also the target is smaller."

Do your superiors approve the shirts before printing?

"Yes, although one time they rejected some shirt that was too extreme. I don't remember what was on it."

These shirts also seem pretty extreme. Why draw crosshairs over a child - do you shoot kids?

'We came, we saw'

"As a sniper, you get a lot of extreme situations. You suddenly see a small boy who picks up a weapon and it's up to you to decide whether to shoot. These shirts are half-facetious, bordering on the truth, and they reflect the extreme situations you might encounter. The one who-honest-to-God sees the target with his own eyes - that's the sniper."

Have you encountered a situation like that?

"Fortunately, not involving a kid, but involving a woman - yes. There was someone who wasn't holding a weapon, but she was near a prohibited area and could have posed a threat."

What did you do?

"I didn't take it" (i.e., shoot).

You don't regret that, I imagine.

"No. Whomever I had to shoot, I shot."

A shirt printed up just this week for soldiers of the Lavi battalion, who spent three years in the West Bank, reads: "We came, we saw, we destroyed!" - alongside images of weapons, an angry soldier and a Palestinian village with a ruined mosque in the center.

A shirt printed after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza for Battalion 890 of the Paratroops depicts a King Kong-like soldier in a city under attack. The slogan is unambiguous: "If you believe it can be fixed, then believe it can be destroyed!"

Y., a soldier/yeshiva student, designed the shirt. "You take whoever [in the unit] knows how to draw and then you give it to the commanders before printing," he explained.

What is the soldier holding in his hand?

Y. "A mosque. Before I drew the shirt I had some misgivings, because I wanted it to be like King Kong, but not too monstrous. The one holding the mosque - I wanted him to have a more normal-looking face, so it wouldn't look like an anti-Semitic cartoon. Some of the people who saw it told me, 'Is that what you've got to show for the IDF? That it destroys homes?' I can understand people who look at this from outside and see it that way, but I was in Gaza and they kept emphasizing that the object of the operation was to wreak destruction on the infrastructure, so that the price the Palestinians and the leadership pay will make them realize that it isn't worth it for them to go on shooting. So that's the idea of 'we're coming to destroy' in the drawing."

According to Y., most of these shirts are worn strictly in an army context, not in civilian life. "And within the army people look at it differently," he added. "I don't think I would walk down the street in this shirt, because it would draw fire. Even at my yeshiva I don't think people would like it."

Y. also came up with a design for the shirt his unit printed at the end of basic training. It shows a clenched fist shattering the symbol of the Paratroops Corps.

Where does the fist come from?

"It's reminiscent of [Rabbi Meir] Kahane's symbol. I borrowed it from an emblem for something in Russia, but basically it's supposed to look like Kahane's symbol, the one from 'Kahane Was Right' - it's a sort of joke. Our company commander is kind of gung-ho."

One of the soldiers in the platoon downplays it: "It doesn't mean much, it's just a T-shirt from our platoon. It's not a big deal. A friend of mine drew a picture and we made it into a shirt."

What's the idea behind "Only God forgives"?

The soldier: "It's just a saying."

No one had a problem with the fact that a mosque gets blown up in the picture?

"I don't see what you're getting at. I don't like the way you're going with this. Don't take this somewhere you're not supposed to, as though we hate Arabs."

After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, accompanied by a particularly graphic slogan. S., a soldier in the platoon that ordered the shirt, said the idea came from a similar shirt, printed after the Second Lebanon War, that featured Hassan Nasrallah instead of Haniyeh.

"They don't okay things like that at the company level. It's a shirt we put out just for the platoon," S. explained.

What's the problem with this shirt?

S.: "It bothers some people to see these things, from a religious standpoint ..."

How did people who saw it respond?

"We don't have that many Orthodox people in the platoon, so it wasn't a problem. It's just something the guys want to put out. It's more for wearing around the house, and not within the companies, because it bothers people. The Orthodox mainly. The officers tell us it's best not to wear shirts like this on the base."

The sketches printed in recent years at the Adiv factory, one of the largest of its kind in the country, are arranged in drawers according to the names of the units placing the orders: Paratroops, Golani, air force, sharpshooters and so on. Each drawer contains hundreds of drawings, filed by year. Many of the prints are cartoons and slogans relating to life in the unit, or inside jokes that outsiders wouldn't get (and might not care to, either), but a handful reflect particular aggressiveness, violence and vulgarity.

Print-shop manager Haim Yisrael, who has worked there since the early 1980s, said Adiv prints around 1,000 different patterns each month, with soldiers accounting for about half. Yisrael recalled that when he started out, there were hardly any orders from the army.

"The first ones to do it were from the Nahal brigade," he said. "Later on other infantry units started printing up shirts, and nowadays any course with 15 participants prints up shirts."

From time to time, officers complain. "Sometimes the soldiers do things that are inside jokes that only they get, and sometimes they do something foolish that they take to an extreme," Yisrael explained. "There have been a few times when commanding officers called and said, 'How can you print things like that for soldiers?' For example, with shirts that trashed the Arabs too much. I told them it's a private company, and I'm not interested in the content. I can print whatever I like. We're neutral. There have always been some more extreme and some less so. It's just that now more people are making shirts."

Race to be unique

Evyatar Ben-Tzedef, a research associate at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism and former editor of the IDF publication Maarachot, said the phenomenon of custom-made T-shirts is a product of "the infantry's insane race to be unique. I, for example, had only one shirt that I received after the Yom Kippur War. It said on it, 'The School for Officers,' and that was it. What happened since then is a product of the decision to assign every unit an emblem and a beret. After all, there used to be very few berets: black, red or green. This changed in the 1990s. [The shirts] developed because of the fact that for bonding purposes, each unit created something that was unique to it.

"These days the content on shirts is sometimes deplorable," Ben-Tzedef explained. "It stems from the fact that profanity is very acceptable and normative in Israel, and that there is a lack of respect for human beings and their environment, which includes racism aimed in every direction."

Yossi Kaufman, who moderates the army and defense forum on the Web site Fresh, served in the Armored Corps from 1996 to 1999. "I also drew shirts, and I remember the first one," he said. "It had a small emblem on the front and some inside joke, like, 'When we die, we'll go to heaven, because we've already been through hell.'"

Kaufman has also been exposed to T-shirts of the sort described here. "I know there are shirts like these," he says. "I've heard and also seen a little. These are not shirts that soldiers can wear in civilian life, because they would get stoned, nor at a battalion get-together, because the battalion commander would be pissed off. They wear them on very rare occasions. There's all sorts of black humor stuff, mainly from snipers, such as, 'Don't bother running because you'll die tired' - with a drawing of a Palestinian boy, not a terrorist. There's a Golani or Givati shirt of a soldier raping a girl, and underneath it says, 'No virgins, no terror attacks.' I laughed, but it was pretty awful. When I was asked once to draw things like that, I said it wasn't appropriate."

The IDF Spokesman's Office comments on the phenomenon: "Military regulations do not apply to civilian clothing, including shirts produced at the end of basic training and various courses. The designs are printed at the soldiers' private initiative, and on civilian shirts. The examples raised by Haaretz are not in keeping with the values of the IDF spirit, not representative of IDF life, and are in poor taste. Humor of this kind deserves every condemnation and excoriation. The IDF intends to take action for the immediate eradication of this phenomenon. To this end, it is emphasizing to commanding officers that it is appropriate, among other things, to take discretionary and disciplinary measures against those involved in acts of this sort."

Shlomo Tzipori, a lieutenant colonel in the reserves and a lawyer specializing in martial law, said the army does bring soldiers up on charges for offenses that occur outside the base and during their free time. According to Tzipori, slogans that constitute an "insult to the army or to those in uniform" are grounds for court-martial, on charges of "shameful conduct" or "disciplinary infraction," which are general clauses in judicial martial law.

Sociologist Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy, of Bar-Ilan University, author of "Identities in Uniform: Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military," said that the phenomenon is "part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront. I think that ever since the second intifada there has been a continual shift to the right. The pullout from Gaza and its outcome - the calm that never arrived - led to a further shift rightward.

"This tendency is most strikingly evident among soldiers who encounter various situations in the territories on a daily basis. There is less meticulousness than in the past, and increasing callousness. There is a perception that the Palestinian is not a person, a human being entitled to basic rights, and therefore anything may be done to him."

Could the printing of clothing be viewed also as a means of venting aggression?

Sasson-Levy: "No. I think it strengthens and stimulates aggression and legitimizes it. What disturbs me is that a shirt is something that has permanence. The soldiers later wear it in civilian life; their girlfriends wear it afterward. It is not a statement, but rather something physical that remains, that is out there in the world. Beyond that, I think the link made between sexist views and nationalist views, as in the 'Screw Haniyeh' shirt, is interesting. National chauvinism and gender chauvinism combine and strengthen one another. It establishes a masculinity shaped by violent aggression toward women and Arabs; a masculinity that considers it legitimate to speak in a crude and violent manner toward women and Arabs."

Col. (res.) Ron Levy began his military service in the Sayeret Matkal elite commando force before the Six-Day War. He was the IDF's chief psychologist, and headed the army's mental health department in the 1980s.

Levy: "I'm familiar with things of this sort going back 40, 50 years, and each time they take a different form. Psychologically speaking, this is one of the ways in which soldiers project their anger, frustration and violence. It is a certain expression of things, which I call 'below the belt.'"

Do you think this a good way to vent anger?

Levy: "It's safe. But there are also things here that deviate from the norm, and you could say that whoever is creating these things has reached some level of normality. He gives expression to the fact that what is considered abnormal today might no longer be so tomorrow."

BETHLEHEM – “Better Use Durex” is the slogan on one t-shirt centered over a cartoon image of a dead Palestinian infant worn proudly by Israeli infantrymen in Tel Aviv.

The latest trend in t-shirts, baseball caps and hooded sweaters manufactured at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv, according to the Israeli daily paper Haaretz, are images of “dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques.”

"Bet you got raped!" was another favorite slogan for the Lavi Battalion. The image was a bruised Palestinian woman.

[More:]

The Haaretz report came days after the paper shook Israeli society with reports revealed from a training session where soldiers from the Gaza war spoke out against the military conditions that promoted the slaughter of innocents and the destruction of private property.

The images of violent t-shirts also follow reports from the Palestine Center for Human Rights revealing similar statements inscribed on the homes of Gaza homes occupied by military units during the Israeli invasion of the area in January.

According to Haaretz, the t-shirt designs are submitted to commanders for approval before printing, though some soldiers noted that those rejected were often printed later and distributed without knowledge of the military administration.

This entry was posted on Mar 21, 2009 at 05:58:18 pm and is filed under Human Rights.
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BETHLEHEN – Al-Khader residents watched 1,500 dignitaries, delegates, poets, officials and Palestinian bureaucrats arrive in the village south of Bethlehem for the kick-off of events honoring Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture 2009 on Saturday afternoon.

The official production, which stressed themes of unity, history, and tradition, highlighted the fault-lines of Palestinian society. A “cultured only” event catering to the Arab, Palestinian and international elite showed how remote cultural events are to much of the local population. In Hebron, youth carried the posters handed out in Al-Khader as souvenirs; as close as they would get to the sound and light show near Bethlehem.

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Several amateur and semi-professional dabka groups brought in to entertain dignitaries were lively, with a variety of styles and excellent choreographing, but the lack of depth in the overall program meant the profundity of Palestinian cultural history was left in favor of modern abstractions of the ideal.

Myriad facets of Palestinian culture were left unplumbed, including upcoming arts and literature talent, modern dance, theatre and comedy. The visual arts and Palestine’s growing IT and design sector were left out in favor of the recitation of lines by Palestine’s late poet, the great Mahmoud Darwish.

Flat, single lens satellite casts from Lebanon and Gaza highlighted the distance between the scattered Palestinian populations rather than bringing a feeling of unity in tradition to the show.

The event was political, and necessarily so for the celebration of an occupied city by a population whose presence is being washed from the streets, but speeches, artistic presentations and issues of access meant that the chance for a true celebration of Jerusalem as a capital of Arab, and indeed Palestinian, culture, is still remote.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, ministers of education from Arab states and consular officials from Jerusalem were greeted by children in kuffiyahs at the invitation-only event.

Jerusalem Governor Adnan Husseini, who narrowly escaped arrest earlier in the day after Israeli forces found him releasing balloons in the city, addressed the Bethlehem audience through a pre-taped speech filmed in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The head of the Arab League’s Organization for Education, Science and Culture (ALESCO), the organization sponsoring the event, addressed the audience expressing his pride in this year’s events celebrating another capital of Arab culture.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the audience next, lamenting the state of the celebrations, driven out of Jerusalem and indoors in the West Bank conference center twenty kilometers away.

Abbas was followed by a video montage of hummus making, bustling markets, hookah pipes in the hands of wizened men on Jerusalem Old City streets and children playing beneath ancient arches. These scenes repeatedly cut to the iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, then to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; images juxtaposed with AK47s and Israeli soldiers in army fatigues.

Talking heads, video montages and traditional dance formed the bulk of the grand event, which was joined by simultaneous satellite casts from Lebanon and Gaza.

In Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers prevented children from launching balloons in different neighborhoods and the Old City. More than 20 officials and local community leaders organizing private events in schools and clubs were arrested. At the same time, however, visitors, tourists and passersby were entirely unaware of the Al-Quds Capital of Culture events being secretly held behind the walls of the city. Indeed, in the capital Saturday’s events were meant to celebrate, it was occupation as usual.

This entry was posted on Mar 21, 2009 at 05:47:43 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Israeli police had warned that attempts to hold
events would be broken up

Israeli police have prevented Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem from holding events to mark the city's designation as "capital of Arab culture" for 2009.

About 20 Palestinians were detained in and around East Jerusalem on Saturday, but there were no reports of violence, Shmulik Ben-Ruby, a police spokesman, said.

Police reinforcements were deployed around the city and barricades were set up on routes to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site.

[More:]

Witnesses said that flags and banners associated with the event were confiscated.

At one school, police and soldiers burst balloons in the colours of the Palestinian flag that the children were trying to release to mark the event.

Hatem Abdel Qader, who handles Jerusalem affairs for the Palestinian Authority, was reportedly among those arrested.

Police crackdown

Ben-Ruby said the crackdown had been ordered by Israel's internal security ministry because the celebrations violated understandings with the Palestinian Authority.

Celebrations in Nazareth, Israel's largest Arab city, were also cancelled by the police.

"This measure is yet another example of the many extreme policies that the various ministries in the Israeli government impose on us," one event organiser told Al Jazeera.

"These measures are imposed on all artists and people who care about culture. This is a form of prevention of our freedom of expression.

However, events were held in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, received officials from Morocco, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Jordan before attending the ceremony at an auditorium made to look like the Old City.

Capital claims

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it as the Jewish state's "eternal and indivisible capital", a move which has not been recognised internationally.

Palestinians demand East Jerusalem as the capital of any future Palestinian state.

Jerusalem follows Damascus as the "capital of Arab culture", a title that has been handed to a different city by the Arab League every year since 1996.

This entry was posted on Mar 21, 2009 at 05:39:07 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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"From above they said it was permissible (to kill any Palestinians in Gaza), because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled" -- IOF soldier

By Amos Harel

Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit.

The previous Friday, February 13, Zamir had invited combat soldiers and officers who graduated the program for a lengthy discussion of their experiences in Gaza. They spoke openly, but also with considerable frustration.

Following are extensive excerpts from the transcript of the meeting, as it appears in the program's bulletin, Briza, which was published on Wednesday. The names of the soldiers have been changed to preserve their anonymity. The editors have also left out some of the details concerning the identity of the units that operated in a problematic way in Gaza.

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Danny Zamir: "I don't intend for us to evaluate the achievements and the diplomatic-political significance of Operation Cast Lead this evening, nor need we deal with the systemic military aspect [of it]. However, discussion is necessary because this was, all told, an exceptional war action in terms of the history of the IDF, which has set new limits for the army's ethical code and that of the State of Israel as a whole.

"This is an action that sowed massive destruction among civilians. It is not certain that it was possible do have done it differently, but ultimately we have emerged from this operation and are not facing real paralysis from the Qassams. It is very possible that we will repeat such an operation on a larger scale in the years to come, because the problem in the Gaza Strip is not simple and it is not at all certain that it has been solved. What we want this evening is to hear from the fighters."

Aviv: "I am squad commander of a company that is still in training, from the Givati Brigade. We went into a neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza City. Altogether, this is a special experience. In the course of the training, you wait for the day you will go into Gaza, and in the end it isn't really like they say it is. It's more like, you come, you take over a house, you kick the tenants out and you move in. We stayed in a house for something like a week.

"Toward the end of the operation there was a plan to go into a very densely populated area inside Gaza City itself. In the briefings they started to talk to us about orders for opening fire inside the city, because as you know they used a huge amount of firepower and killed a huge number of people along the way, so that we wouldn't get hurt and they wouldn't fire on us.

"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?

"From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled. I didn't really understand: On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ... This also scared me a bit. I tried to exert some influence, insofar as is possible from within my subordinate position, to change this. In the end the specification involved going into a house, operating megaphones and telling [the tenants]: 'Come on, everyone get out, you have five minutes, leave the house, anyone who doesn't get out gets killed.'

"I went to our soldiers and said, 'The order has changed. We go into the house, they have five minutes to escape, we check each person who goes out individually to see that he has no weapons, and then we start going into the house floor by floor to clean it out ... This means going into the house, opening fire at everything that moves , throwing a grenade, all those things. And then there was a very annoying moment. One of my soldiers came to me and asked, 'Why?' I said, 'What isn't clear? We don't want to kill innocent civilians.' He goes, 'Yeah? Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact.' I said, 'Do you think the people there will really run away? No one will run away.' He says, 'That's clear,' and then his buddies join in: 'We need to murder any person who's in there. Yeah, any person who's in Gaza is a terrorist,' and all the other things that they stuff our heads with, in the media.

"And then I try to explain to the guy that not everyone who is in there is a terrorist, and that after he kills, say, three children and four mothers, we'll go upstairs and kill another 20 or so people. And in the end it turns out that [there are] eight floors times five apartments on a floor - something like a minimum of 40 or 50 families that you murder. I tried to explain why we had to let them leave, and only then go into the houses. It didn't really help. This is really frustrating, to see that they understand that inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no reason other than it's cool.

"You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing in understanding how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."

"One of our officers, a company commander, saw someone coming on some road, a woman, an old woman. She was walking along pretty far away, but close enough so you could take out someone you saw there. If she were suspicious, not suspicious - I don't know. In the end, he sent people up to the roof, to take her out with their weapons. From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold blood."

Zamir: "I don't understand. Why did he shoot her?"

Aviv: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her."

Zvi: "Aviv's descriptions are accurate, but it's possible to understand where this is coming from. And that woman, you don't know whether she's ... She wasn't supposed to be there, because there were announcements and there were bombings. Logic says she shouldn't be there. The way you describe it, as murder in cold blood, that isn't right. It's known that they have lookouts and that sort of thing."

Gilad: "Even before we went in, the battalion commander made it clear to everyone that a very important lesson from the Second Lebanon War was the way the IDF goes in - with a lot of fire. The intention was to protect soldiers' lives by means of firepower. In the operation the IDF's losses really were light and the price was that a lot of Palestinians got killed."

Ram: "I serve in an operations company in the Givati Brigade. After we'd gone into the first houses, there was a house with a family inside. Entry was relatively calm. We didn't open fire, we just yelled at everyone to come down. We put them in a room and then left the house and entered it from a different lot. A few days after we went in, there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sharpshooters' position on the roof. The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go, and it was was okay and he should hold his fire and he ... he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders."

Question from the audience: "At what range was this?"

Ram: "Between 100 and 200 meters, something like that. They had also came out of the house that he was on the roof of, they had advanced a bit and suddenly he saw then, people moving around in an area where they were forbidden to move around. I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it .... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way."

Yuval Friedman (chief instructor at the Rabin program): "Wasn't there a standing order to request permission to open fire?"

Ram: "No. It exists, beyond a certain line. The idea is that you are afraid that they are going to escape from you. If a terrorist is approaching and he is too close, he could blow up the house or something like that."

Zamir: "After a killing like that, by mistake, do they do some sort of investigation in the IDF? Do they look into how they could have corrected it?"

Ram: "They haven't come from the Military Police's investigative unit yet. There hasn't been any ... For all incidents, there are individual investigations and general examinations, of all of the conduct of the war. But they haven't focused on this specifically."

Moshe: "The attitude is very simple: It isn't pleasant to say so, but no one cares at all. We aren't investigating this. This is what happens during fighting and this is what happens during routine security."

Ram: "What I do remember in particular at the beginning is the feeling of almost a religious mission. My sergeant is a student at a hesder yeshiva [a program that combines religious study and military service]. Before we went in, he assembled the whole platoon and led the prayer for those going into battle. A brigade rabbi was there, who afterward came into Gaza and went around patting us on the shoulder and encouraging us, and praying with people. And also when we were inside they sent in those booklets, full of Psalms, a ton of Psalms. I think that at least in the house I was in for a week, we could have filled a room with the Psalms they sent us, and other booklets like that.

"There was a huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out. The Education Corps published a pamphlet for commanders - something about the history of Israel's fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present. The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles, and ... their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war. From my position as a commander and 'explainer,' I attempted to talk about the politics - the streams in Palestinian society, about how not everyone who is in Gaza is Hamas, and not every inhabitant wants to vanquish us. I wanted to explain to the soldiers that this war is not a war for the sanctification of the holy name, but rather one to stop the Qassams."

Zamir: "I would like to ask the pilots who are here, Gideon and Yonatan, to tell us a little about their perspective. As an infantryman, this has always interested me. How does it feel when you bomb a city like that?"

Gideon: "First of all, about what you have said concerning the crazy amounts of firepower: Right in the first foray in the fighting, the quantities were very impressive, very large, and this is mainly what sent all the Hamasniks into hiding in the deepest shelters and kept them from showing their faces until some two weeks after the fighting.

"In general the way that it works for us, just so you will understand the differences a bit, is that at night I would come to the squadron, do one foray in Gaza and go home to sleep. I go home to sleep in Tel Aviv, in my warm bed. I'm not stuck in a bed in the home of a Palestinian family, so life is a little better.

"When I'm with the squadron, I don't see a terrorist who is launching a Qassam and then decide to fly out to get him. There is a whole system that supports us, that serves as eyes, ears and intelligence for every plane that takes off, and creates more and more targets in real-time, of one level of legitimacy or another. In any case, I try to believe that these are targets [determined according to] the highest possible level of legitimacy.

"They dropped leaflets over Gaza and would sometimes fire a missile from a helicopter into the corner of some house, just to shake up the house a bit so everyone inside would flee. These things worked. The families came out, and really people [i.e., soldiers] did enter houses that were pretty empty, at least of innocent civilians. From this perspective it works.

"In any case, I arrive at the squadron, I get a target with a description and coordinates, and basically just make sure it isn't within the line of our forces. I look at the picture of the house I am suppose to attack, I see that it matches reality, I take off, I push the button and the bomb takes itself exactly to within one meter of the target itself."

Zamir: "Among the pilots, is there also talk or thoughts of remorse? For example, I was terribly surprised by the enthusiasm surrounding the killing of the Gaza traffic police on the first day of the operation: They took out 180 traffic cops. As a pilot, I would have questioned that."

Gideon: "There are two parts to this. Tactically speaking, you call them 'police.' In any case, they are armed and belong to Hamas ... During better times, they take Fatah people and throw them off the roofs and see what happens.

"With regard to the thoughts, you sit with the squadron and there are lots of discussions about the value-related significance of the fighting, about what we are doing; there is a lot to talk about. From the moment you start the plane's engine until the moment you turn it off, all of your thoughts, all of your concentration and all of your attention are on the mission you have to carry out. If you have an unjustified doubt, you're liable to cause a far greater screw- up and knock down a school with 40 children. If the building I hit isn't the one I am supposed to hit, but rather a house with our guys inside - the price of the mistake is very, very high."

Question from the audience: "Was there anyone in the squadron who didn't push the button, who thought twice?"

Gideon: "That question should be addressed to those involved in the helicopter operation, or to the guys who see what they do. With the weapons I used, my ability to make a decision that contradicts what they told me up to that point is zero. I dispatch the bomb from a range within which I can see the entire Gaza Strip. I also see Haifa, I also see Sinai, but it's more or less the same. It's from really far away."

Yossi: "I am a platoon sergeant in an operations company of the Paratroops Brigade. We were in a house and discovered a family inside that wasn't supposed to be there. We assembled them all in the basement, posted two guards at all times and made sure they didn't make any trouble. Gradually, the emotional distance between us broke down - we had cigarettes with them, we drank coffee with them, we talked about the meaning of life and the fighting in Gaza. After very many conversations the owner of the house, a man of 70-plus, was saying it's good we are in Gaza and it's good that the IDF is doing what it is doing.

"The next day we sent the owner of the house and his son, a man of 40 or 50, for questioning. The day after that, we received an answer: We found out that both are political activists in Hamas. That was a little annoying - that they tell you how fine it is that you're here and good for you and blah-blah-blah, and then you find out that they were lying to your face the whole time.

"What annoyed me was that in the end, after we understood that the members of this family weren't exactly our good friends and they pretty much deserved to be forcibly ejected from there, my platoon commander suggested that when we left the house, we should clean up all the stuff, pick up and collect all the garbage in bags, sweep and wash the floor, fold up the blankets we used, make a pile of the mattresses and put them back on the beds."

Zamir: "What do you mean? Didn't every IDF unit that left a house do that?"

Yossi: "No. Not at all. On the contrary: In most of the houses graffiti was left behind and things like that."

Zamir: "That's simply behaving like animals."

Yossi: "You aren't supposed to be concentrating on folding blankets when you're being shot at."

Zamir: "I haven't heard all that much about you being shot at. It's not that I'm complaining, but if you've spent a week in a home, clean up your filth."

Aviv: "We got an order one day: All of the equipment, all of the furniture - just clean out the whole house. We threw everything, everything, out of the windows to make room. The entire contents of the house went flying out the windows."

Yossi: "There was one day when a Katyusha, a Grad, landed in Be'er Sheva and a mother and her baby were moderately to seriously injured. They were neighbors of one of my soldiers. We heard the whole story on the radio, and he didn't take it lightly - that his neighbors were seriously hurt. So the guy was a bit antsy, and you can understand him. To tell a person like that, 'Come on, let's wash the floor of the house of a political activist in Hamas, who has just fired a Katyusha at your neighbors that has amputated one of their legs' - this isn't easy to do, especially if you don't agree with it at all. When my platoon commander said, 'Okay, tell everyone to fold up blankets and pile up mattresses,' it wasn't easy for me to take. There was lot of shouting. In the end I was convinced and realized it really was the right thing to do. Today I appreciate and even admire him, the platoon commander, for what happened there. In the end I don't think that any army, the Syrian army, the Afghani army, would wash the floor of its enemy's houses, and it certainly wouldn't fold blankets and put them back in the closets."

Zamir: "I think it would be important for parents to sit here and hear this discussion. I think it would be an instructive discussion, and also very dismaying and depressing. You are describing an army with very low value norms, that's the truth ... I am not judging you and I am not complaining about you. I'm just reflecting what I'm feeling after hearing your stories. I wasn't in Gaza, and I assume that among reserve soldiers the level of restraint and control is higher, but I think that all in all, you are reflecting and describing the kind of situation we were in.

"After the Six-Day War, when people came back from the fighting, they sat in circles and described what they had been through. For many years the people who did this were said to be 'shooting and crying.' In 1983, when we came back from the Lebanon War, the same things were said about us. We need to think about the events we have been through. We need to grapple with them also, in terms of establishing a standard or different norms.

"It is quite possible that Hamas and the Syrian army would behave differently from me. The point is that we aren't Hamas and we aren't the Syrian army or the Egyptian army, and if clerics are anointing us with oil and sticking holy books in our hands, and if the soldiers in these units aren't representative of the whole spectrum in the Jewish people, but rather of certain segments of the population - what are we expecting? To whom are we complaining?

"As reservists we don't take relate seriously to the orders of the regional brigades. We let the old people go through and we let families go through. Why kill people when it's clear to you that they are civilians? Which aspect of Israel's security will be harmed, who will be harmed? Exercise judgment, be human."

This entry was posted on Mar 21, 2009 at 08:48:23 am and is filed under Human Rights, Racism.
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Palestinian youths prepare to throw stones at Israeli soldiers in protest against the closure of the West Bank village of Dura near Hebron

Israel imposes further punishments on Gaza after the breakdown of negotiations, reports Khaled Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem

The Israeli government has decided to impose a new "set of punishments" against the Gaza Strip following the breakdown of Egyptian-mediated negotiations with Hamas over the release of an Israeli occupation soldier held by the Islamic movement's fighters.

The Israeli government, which had signaled that a prisoner swap deal with Hamas was within reach, suddenly changed its mind, accusing Hamas of "inflexibility" and "making exaggerated demands."

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Hamas's demands have remained unchanged ever since the Shalit affair began more than 30 months ago when Palestinian guerrillas captured the Israeli occupation soldier during a cross- border battle with the Israeli army.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched a tirade against Hamas, calling the movement a "terrorist group". Olmert utterly ignored Israel's own terrorist record of killing and murdering thousands of innocent Palestinians during his reign of power.

In December and January, the Israeli army carried out a huge blitz on the Gaza Strip, killing and maiming more than 5,000 people, including hundreds of children, and utterly destroying the bulk of the coastal enclave's civilian infrastructure.

Similarly, the Israeli army killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians during the 2006 onslaught on Lebanon and dropped millions of cluster bombs on the Lebanese countryside.

Israel routinely calls its Arab victims "terrorists" while considering its own terror "legitimate self-defence". It also holds as many as 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them political activists incarcerated without charge or trial.

Trying to justify his government's refusal to release the leaders of the Palestinian Intifada from Israeli prisons, Olmert said the release of "bloody terrorists" was a red line which Israel was not ready to cross.

"Israel will not give in to Hamas dictates as long as I am prime minister. We will not cease our efforts [to release Shalit from Hamas custody], but we have red lines and will not cross them. We are not a defeated nation."

Israel had offered to release only 350 of the 450 political and resistance leaders imprisoned in Israel in connection with their resistance to the Israeli occupation during the last Palestinian Intifada or uprising.

However, Hamas refused to compromise on the release of the remaining 100 prisoners, arguing that "as Shalit has a family, our prisoners also have families that are waiting for them to come home."

Hamas spokesmen in Gaza also dismissed arguments made by Israeli leaders that some Palestinian prisoners were responsible for the death of Israelis.

"Israel has murdered thousands of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese civilians with white phosphorous shells and cluster bombs. Israel has been murdering Palestinians ever since its creation. Israel itself is the world's premier murderer, liar and thief," said Mushir Al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.

Al-Masri told reporters, "it is time Israel realises that our victims are not children of a lesser God and that Jewish blood is not more precious than Palestinian blood."

Hamas's officials involved in the negotiations held Israel fully responsible for the breakdown of the talks. Osama Mazeini said Hamas was negotiating in good faith, adding that Israel wanted to "dictate on us unacceptable conditions such as which prisoner should be released."

Israel also demanded that dozens of prisoners be deported to Syria, a concept Hamas described as "virulent and despicable". Syria refused, with one Syrian officials saying, "Palestinians have a country, it is called Palestine."

According to Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Israel had agreed to "the number" of prisoners to be released but not specifically to those on the Hamas list and not to how they would be released.

Hamdan said Israel rejected some of the names, thinking that this could bear some fruit in view of the pressure that would be created by Olmert's imminent departure from office. He also revealed that Israel wanted Shalit to be released before it released the Palestinian prisoners, which he described as "unacceptable".

Olmert likened the popular Islamic movement to the Third Reich, suggesting that the small, besieged movement posed a great threat to world democracies.

The utterly spurious analogy, observers here suggest, reflected Olmert's frustration by the failure of the unrelenting harsh blockade of the Gaza Strip and Israel's bullying tactics against Hamas to force the movement to free Shalit in return for a "more modest price", allowing Israel to save face.

This is what Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin apparently alluded to following the Israeli cabinet session Tuesday. "Had we agreed to the Hamas conditions as they insisted on during the final day of negotiations, it would have caused serious security damage to Israel."

Israeli Military Intelligence Director Amos Yadlin was more forthcoming in explaining why Israel refused to free key Palestinian political and resistance leaders. "Submitting to Hamas's demands would have dealt a mortal blow to moderate elements in the Palestinian Authority and the entire Middle East, while extremists would have been greatly strengthened."

Israeli sources had reported that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas had warned Israel on several occasions against releasing a large number of Palestinian prisoners at this time on the grounds that this would strengthen Hamas while adversely affecting the Western-backed PA regime. The PA dismissed the Israeli reports as "cheap disinformation".

Interestingly, neither Israel nor Hamas said they would terminate talks aimed at realising a prisoner swap in the foreseeable future. However, it is obvious that Olmert and his outgoing government hope that the incoming right-wing Israeli government, headed by Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu, will convince Hamas to back down or at least backtrack on its original demands regarding the number of prisoners it wants to see freed in exchange for Shalit.

Netanyahu himself has been silent on the issue and is not expected to voice his opinion until he is sworn in as prime minister, probably by the end of next week. He had hoped that the Olmert government would free Shalit before the new government assumes power.

Additional Israeli sanctions against the already tormented Gazans will include further tightening of the blockade and barring the entry into Gaza of more essential items and consumer products. This represents a direct challenge to growing American and European calls urging Israel to relax the three-year-old draconian siege.

This entry was posted on Mar 20, 2009 at 07:46:44 pm and is filed under Arts, Culture & Entertainment.
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Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister-elect, has been given two more weeks to form a broad-based coalition government, which he says is essential to maintain political stability.

The Likud leader was granted the extra time by the Israeli president on Friday to persuade the Labour party under Ehud Barak, the outgoing defence minister, to join his coalition.

"The creation of such a government is all the more important in view of ... the grave [security] threats and economic crisis," the office of Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, quoted Netanyahu as saying.

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Coalition talks

Barak, who initially rejected Netanyahu's offer, has asked his party to consider joining a Likud-led coalition, saying it was in the "superior interests of the state" to counter the effect of the rightist party.

The 1,460-strong Labour congress is due to decide on Tuesday whether they will join the new government.

"The battle will be decided by a very few votes," the Maariv daily said.

According to Israeli news reports, Netanyahu has offered Barak to stay on as the defence minister.

But Yuli Tamir, a Labour MP and outgoing education minister, claimed Barak was leading the party to its doom, saying a government led by Netanyahu would block any effort to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Deal with Hamas

It is believed that the extra time would also give Ehud Olmert, the outgoing prime minister, more time to seek a prisoner-swap deal with Hamas to secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian fighters in Gaza in June, 2006.

The latest round of Egyptian-mediated negotiations over the prisoner swap collapsed on Monday following disagreements on the list of Palestinians to be released by Israel.

Netanyahu was asked on February 20 to form a government after February 10 elections. Initially he was given a 28-day deadline but is legally entitled to a two-week extension.

Although the rival Kadima party won 28 seats in the February elections, one more than Netanyahu's Likud, the former premier was tasked with forming the next government because he is believed to have a better chance of forging a majority in the 120-seat parliament.